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moonjxsung · 6 months

Text

Lost in Translation

Pairing: Lee Minho x fem reader

W/c: 26.5k

Warnings: accidental nudity, hospital visit, mention of masturbation, use of pet names, breast/nipple play, clitoral stimulation, unprotected sex, bulge kink, sexual asphyxiation, breeding kink, creampie, oral sex (male receiving), brief mention of pregnancy

Synopsis: The older brother of the boy you babysit is an enigma, in every sense of the word- and you’re determined to figure him out.

[this work was based off a request by @antoniorhinothethird - thank you for requesting!]

18+. Mdni!

•

The idea of babysitting isn’t some brilliant proposal you conjured up in a day- but it’s not exactly a choice, either. The idea isn’t even yours, in fact, the advertisements you published on the colorful inquiry site at your mother’s behest. But “college courses are virtual these days” and “you’ll be a mother at some point in your life,” according to her. So two months into the semester, you’ll now spend the majority of your time in a new place you’ll call home, just 30 minutes out at the Lee Household.

The Lee household is considerably larger than you’d originally anticipated it to be, spanning a sizable amount of grassland and standing nobly tall at 2 stories high. The exterior of the flashy home is surrounded by paved gravel driveways, lining the neat rows of bushels and vines that surround the off-white architectural build. Giant glass windows reflect sunlight in nearly every room of the house, with the exception of the dimly-lit library on the second floor, which flaunts colossal cherry wooden bookshelves that line the walls and cover most of the smaller windows.

“Joon is usually very mellow in the daytime,” Mrs. Lee tells you as she walks you through a tour of the garden. “You’ll only have to worry about his feeding schedules, which I’ve already written and posted on the refrigerator.”

She pivots in front of you, stopping for a moment and gesturing to the stone fountain by the rose bushes. “Do you like it? It was a gift from my husband. When he’s not running the furniture business, he works in restoration a lot. This was his first project.”

“Wow,” you say, your lips parted at the sight of the koi fish and the cascading waterfall from its lips. “It’s very beautiful.”

Mrs. Lee smiles at you in response, turning on her heel and continuing to the iron gates in the front.

“Do you have any other questions?” She asks, clasping her hands together and shooting you a saccharine smile. She’s intimating, not because of her personality, which you quickly clock as rather warm and inviting. But rather, because she’s so elegant, her navy silk dress perfectly complementing the chunky pearl earrings she wears, making her look like a character from an old film. You’re not sure you’ve ever crossed paths with such an interesting woman before.

“I think that covers everything,” you say finally, giving her a small bow. “I’ll be sure to provide updates throughout the day.”

“Oh, no need,” she says quickly. “Unless it’s an emergency, l know you’ll have your hands full doing your work while watching Joon. Feel free to just give us a little summary when we’re home for the evening.”

She shoots you a little wink when she finishes speaking, clasping her hands together again and smiling down at you.

“We’ll see you tomorrow for your first day!” She exclaims warmly, opening gate doors as you make your exit out of the garden. When you begin down the paved road, Mrs. Lee suddenly gasps, calling out to you again in a frantic manner.

“Oh! Y/n, wait please!” She calls, pulling the skirt of her dress up to her ankles to jog over to where you’re standing.

“My other son will be home from school in the afternoon tomorrow. Don’t be alarmed if you hear him moving about the house. He’ll just keep to himself.”

You ponder the words for a moment, a little frustrated when you realize there will be two kids in the household instead of one, like she’d previously mentioned. But you just nod and smile at her, seeing yourself out of the driveway once again and beginning the journey back home to prepare for your first day here tomorrow.

This castle-at-end-of-the-road is eerily quiet when no one’s home, a once lively sight of rose bushes and marble statues appearing like something out of a horror movie when you’re by yourself. At every corner you turn, your brain runs rampant with paranoia, placing shadowy figures and silhouettes of people where there are none- except for when you’re in the presence of Joon.

At just a year old, Joon is considered one of the cutest ages, only being able to babble incoherent noises and flail his little hands around when he wants something. His closet is full of matching neutral tones, per his mother’s styling, and his sparse black hair is combed neatly to one side.

Mrs. Lee is right about him- he doesn’t cry. Nor does he ever make a fuss, really. He simply sits quietly, in the comfort of his crib, or his high chair, and he curiously peers at the world around him. You’re certain he’s taken a liking to you already, judging at how he smiles when you spoon-feed him mashed carrots and mimic airplane noises. And he only cries briefly once in the day, stopping almost immediately when you put him down for his nap.

This may be an easier gig than you thought.

While Joon naps, you take the opportunity to get some work done in the library, settling comfortably on the velvet armchair in the corner and running through a few of your online class assignments for the week.

Although you’ll be babysitting here for the next few weeks, you’re also completing your final year at university this year, your last semester being completely remote. Which gives you time to take on the babysitting task as a side hustle, and hopefully save enough money to travel a bit after university like you’ve always dreamt of.

At half past noon, Joon is still peacefully asleep in his crib where you’ve left him, the ambient sound of waves echoing softly from his baby monitor as little snores emit from his curled lips. He looks like an angel when he sleeps, and you can’t help but feel your heart swell to twice its size at the sight of him.

The gentle breeze of the October wind travels through the open windows of the library, sending chills up your spine when you sit down to work again. You get up from where you’re sitting on the armchair to latch the windows shut, making sure to lock them, before turning around to take your seat again- quickly startled by the figure standing in the doorway.

“Jesus,” you yelp, one hand clutching your chest in fear as you nearly drop your laptop.

The figure- or man, rather, says nothing, scanning the room like he’s searching for something, before turning on his heel and exiting the room once again.

He’s tall, with a slim yet muscular build, honey tanned skin complementing his chocolate brown tresses. He’s also dressed rather casually in a pair of light-wash jeans and a black top, a black leather jacket thrown over his broad shoulders and left unzipped.

“Sorry, did you need something?” You call out, perplexed by his demeanor. You can’t remember if the Lees warned you of potential visitors, but you’re suddenly panicked for Joon, remembering you left his door open.

“Nope,” the man calls out over his shoulder, not turning around to face you. And then you see it- a black backpack, slung over one shoulder and seemingly filled to the brim with textbooks.

Their other son.

This must be the son Mrs. Lee warned you would be making appearances in the afternoon. But you had assumed him to be much younger, especially considering he’s definitely old enough to be watching over his own brother.

Before you can gather your thoughts to introduce yourself, he’s gone again, disappearing down the hall the same way he so mysteriously appeared. And you wonder, briefly, how he can be so much colder than his own mother.

The first day of your new job is a success. When Mrs. Lee returns home for the evening, she pays you in cash, true to her traditional style, and sends you home with a tin of shortbread cookies as another ‘thank you’, though she’s already voiced it a million times. But the second day is rougher than the first, reminding you of why babysitting isn’t always an easy task despite what it may seem.

Joon is particularly antsy today, flailing his arms around when you try to spoon feed him and whining relentlessly when you pick him up. He needs several diaper changes in just your first few hours of working, and when you finally do get him clean, he’s a crying, screaming mess.

Fortunately, he still goes down for his nap at noon, which means you have a narrow window of time to complete your work for the day and get freshened up. The windows in the library are propped wide open again, a cold breeze coming through as you settle in your new favorite spot and open your laptop.

There are a myriad of assignments to complete today, and you’re briefly panicked that you won’t be able to complete the necessary few pieces if Joon suddenly wakes again. But still, you try, skimming through textbooks and typing away as much as you can to make steady progress. And at the hour mark, Joon begins to cry. Rather he wails, loudly, from the other room, startling you when you’re already in deep concentration working through a practice quiz.

You make your way down the hallway and to the right, where Joon’s room is, approaching the crib and catching a glimpse of his anguished state. His face is a robust shade of red as he wails loudly, bubbles of saliva forming at his nostrils and his eyes squeezed shut. You guide him out of the crib and into the safety of your arms, shushing him gently and rocking him back and forth the way Mrs. Lee taught you. And Joon calms instantly, hiccuping through tears as he locks his gaze on yours and fists at strands of your hair.

“That’s okay,” you coo at him, grazing your finger along his chin and cleaning some of the drool that dribbles from the corners of his lips. “I’m here. Look at you! You’re okay,” you continue, giggling at him when his quivering lips pull into a small smile. He softens in your arms, smiling and babbling with hushed sounds, clutching tightly on strands of your hair as you balance him in your arms.

“You want to come do some work?” You ask, nodding your head as if to coax an answer out of him. “That’s a good baby, huh? Let’s go do some work.”

And you travel back to the library with Joon in your arms, giving him gentle pats on his back as you hoist him tighter into your embrace and balance your laptop with one arm.

When you’re starting on your last task of the evening, you’re interrupted again today by Mrs. Lee’s eldest son, who pokes his head in the doorway and observes as you coo down at Joon’s sleeping figure while working on your computer with one hand.

“Do you want me to take him?” You hear from the doorway, and you crane your neck to look where he’s standing, his hands shoved in his pockets and his backpack slung lazily over one arm.

“I’m okay,” you respond, typing out a word with one hand. He furrows his eyebrows at your failed attempt, approaching you and reaching out his arms to take Joon from your embrace.

“You can’t work like this,” he says, as he peacefully transfers Joon to his own arms. “He won’t wake up if I put him back, I promise.”

“Thanks,” you reply, taking note of his features now that he’s at a closer proximity to you for the first time. He has large round eyes, and long eyelashes that make even you jealous. His nose bridge is sharp and straight, and when he chuckles softly at Joon, you notice his skewed front teeth, ones that make his smile seem sweeter- softer.

As he begins out the doorway, you try to think of what to say to him, not wanting to have another awkward run-in with him like your last one. But nothing comes to mind that won’t be just as awkward as the encounter itself, and you settle on painful silence once again.

As you unlock your laptop, continuing on to your last assignment, you hear the faint noise of Mrs. Lee’s elder son putting Joon back to sleep.

Except he sounds different than he has during your two previous encounters. He’s laughing, babbling, even cooing at Joon as he puts him back to sleep. And though you really shouldn’t intrude, you make your way to the doorway again, where you peer down the hall to listen in on the endearing noises he makes.

“Are you sleepy?” He asks, his voice two octaves higher than usual. “Let’s sleep now, okay? No, you can’t have my shirt. That’s mine, remember? Let’s have good dreams now. I love you!”

You hear Joon giggling from the end of the corridor and you smile to yourself, wholly moved by the tender little moment he shares with his baby brother. He might not be his full-time caregiver, but he certainly knows what he’s doing. As you stay pondering his behavior for a moment, you don’t even notice when he exits the room again, turning to watch you standing around the doorway. Your ear is still leaned into the corridor, clearly having listened in on the private moment.

“Sorry,” you say quickly, straightening your posture, a wave of embarrassment quickly washing over you. “I was making sure Joon got to bed okay.”

He just nods once, looking you over briefly before meeting your gaze again.

“Minho,” he then practically mutters, averting your gaze as he waits for you to speak.

It’s his name, you realize, barely even having registered what he said to you. He’s telling you his name.

“Y/n,” you respond quickly, giving him a small bow and smiling nervously.

And Minho says nothing, pivoting on his heel to exit the corridor and disappear all over again.

For two weeks, your job runs smoothly, no glaring problems or hangups. Joon remains fond of you, obedient at mealtimes and when he’s put to bed. And the system of completing your college coursework goes smoothly, being able to get through several assignments a day while Joon takes his afternoon nap. If anything, you might be more productive than you were before this job, despite balancing it between university.

It’s an overcast Tuesday afternoon, and you’ve spent most of your day working in Joon’s nursery on the rocking chair next to his crib. He’s been a little fussy today, but you find that he calms down a little at the repetitive clicking noises of your laptop keyboard. Once you’ve confirmed he’s asleep, little snores emitting from his lips, you gather your belongings and sneak away to the library again. Only this time, it’s not vacant.

Minho sits in your usual spot today, his legs propped up on the footrest in front of him and a book in his lap. He doesn’t even notice you in the doorway, strands of hair hanging loosely in front of his face as he scans the page of his book. He also looks significantly more casual than other days you’ve seen him around, wearing a plain black t-shirt and gray sweats, a pair of round wireframe glasses resting on the bridge of his nose.

He feels your gaze on him, shuffling about suddenly and closing his book.

“Sorry,” Minho says. “I was just… reading.”

He realizes how awkward he sounds, verbally conveying his actions to you like this, but he’s too caught off guard to form a more coherent string of words.

“It’s okay,” you say politely, setting your bag down on the floor and occupying the chair across from him.

“What book?” You ask, cocking your head at the small red novel he clutches in his lap.

“Hm? Oh, uh… it’s Love and Limerence. By Dorothy Tennov.”

You nod in response, studying the cherub painted on the cover, wielding a bow and arrow.

“Big romance fan?”

“No,” Minho says, chuckling at your words. “It’s a required read for my class.”

“How neat,” you reply. “What class requires romance novels these days?”

“My philosophy course,” Minho says, running the pads of his fingers over the raised text on the cover. “The psychology of emotion.”

“PHIL 105,” you say, knowing very well the course he speaks of.

“Yeah- you’ve taken it?”

“No, but I had a friend who did in freshman year. I’m in my last semester now- my remaining classes are virtual, though.”

“It’s my last semester, too,” Minho says with a little smile, fiddling with the lobe of his ear as he talks.

“Well best of luck to you in the final stretch,” you reply, shooting him a small smile back. “I hope it all goes smoothly.”

Minho gives a half nod, and then furrows his eyebrows together, like he’s just remembered something.

“I’ll get out of your hair,” he says suddenly, sitting up and gathering his belongings.

“Oh, I really don’t mind-”

“Catch you later,” He interrupts with a nervous tone, almost jogging out of the library and back down the corridor.

And just like the first day you met him, you maintain the same idea of him- he’s such an enigma. Appearing in and out of the household, not one to voice his thoughts or his opinions, no eagerness to know the stranger sitting in his house watching over his baby brother. But somehow, like the rest of the household, you can’t help but have a lingering curiosity for Minho, too.

“My husband and I might be late getting back today,” Mrs. Lee says one morning as you feed Joon his breakfast. His tongue dodges the plastic spoon, dribbling mashed food out from the corners of his lips and laughing when you go to dab his face clean with a napkin.

“That’s alright,” you reply, loading up the spoon with more food. “I can wait until you’ve arrived.”

“You will?” Mrs. Lee asks, a kind of sparkle in her eyes as she speaks. “That would mean the world to us. It’s just that my husband has an auction to attend today. And sometimes these events run longer than they’re meant to.”

“No problem at all,” you say, smiling at her as you turn your attention back to Joon. “Joon and I will just hang out a little longer today. Isn’t that right?”

He babbles something in response, a string of saliva trailing from his lips, and Mrs. Lee laughs at the sight.

“He’s really taken a liking to you!”

As she fixes Joon’s hair, Minho enters the kitchen, dressed for the day with his backpack already slung over his shoulder.

“Minho,” his mother says in a scolding tone. “No gum for breakfast. Have a fruit.”

“Can’t,” he replies curtly. “My philosophy exam is today.”

“What does that have to do with depriving yourself of food?”

“It’s bad luck to eat before an exam,” Minho retorts, coming around the granite island to kiss her on the cheek. “Besides,” Minho continues. “I’m ditching my second class, so I’ll be home a little earlier.”

When he turns around, his gaze meets yours, and he instantly stiffens.

His gaze turns cold again, his hands shoving in his jacket pockets as he says nothing to you. He just bows, once, and then turns to exit like he’s suddenly in some rush.

“Bye,” he calls out, and you’re not even sure who he’s addressing it to at this point.

“I should get going, too,” Mrs. Lee says to you. “I’ll call you when we leave the event tonight. And please, feel free to make yourself comfortable after Joon gets put to bed. There’s cash on the table if you want to order something for dinner, and extra blankets are in the upstairs closet if you get sleepy.”

“Thank you,” you say to Mrs. Lee as she gathers her car keys and handbag. And the house is quiet again when you’re all alone, with the exception of Joon’s heavy breathing as he stares at you curiously.

“It’s like a mansion here,” you say to your best friend as you balance Joon in your arms and crane your neck on your shoulder to hold the phone against your ear. “Mrs. Lee is so nice. I thought she’d be stuck up or something, but she’s like a second mother.”

“You hit the jackpot,” your friend voices on the other end of the line. “Any idea how long they need you around?”

“Not sure,” you reply, wiping the granite counter with a rag as you finish up the dishes. “Probably until their son is done with the semester.”

“Son?” She says excitedly. “Is he cute?”

“Please,” you echo, rolling your eyes. “His looks mean nothing considering he doesn’t say a word.”

“What do you mean?”

“Exactly that. He just doesn’t talk. We go to the same university and it’s like pulling teeth trying to figure out something as simple as what his major is. I think he despises having me around.”

“I mean, to be fair, I wouldn’t love someone in my space 24/7. It’s probably a territorial thing.”

“He’s not a cat,” you respond, laughing lightly. “He’s a grown man. I just get the feeling he doesn’t like me.”

“Well I highly doubt that,” she says, and you can hear her shuffling about on her end of the line.

“Hey, I have to go,” she chimes in. “But I’ll talk to you later. Good luck with baby Joon and the cat man.”

“Thanks,” you reply, chuckling to yourself.

As you hang up the phone, you turn around to gather the last of the dishes, stopping in your tracks when you’re met with Minho himself.

He’s standing in the kitchen, popping a bubble of gum with his teeth, his gaze locked coldly on yours as he observes the place.

That’s right- he did say he would be home a bit earlier after his exam today. Was he standing there for the entirety of your conversation? You can’t recall how long the phone call lasted, or even the specifics of what you said. But you do know it certainly wasn’t good.

“Hi,” you say nervously, scanning his expression for a hint of what he’s thinking. But he provides you none, kicking off his boots and making his way up the stairs again.

The guilt is still eating away at you two hours later- Minho hasn’t descended the staircase once since the incident, and you can hardly focus on your school work at the thought of what he’s thinking of you.

Here you are, complaining about him seeming “cold” or “off”- the whole time you’re the one talking about him behind his back and stirring up drama. If he hated you before, he definitely despises you now. And if he's as close with his mother as he seemed this morning, you could be out of a job by tomorrow.

In reluctant steps, you ascend the wooden staircase, clutching a small mug of coffee and a stack of buttered toast. You remember Minho saying he’d have breakfast after his exam, a task he wasn’t able to complete due to your impolite conversation earlier. And while you’re not even sure he’s going to give you the time of day anymore, it’s worth a shot to try.

At the top of the staircase, you realize you’re unsure of which room even belongs to Minho. There are rows of doors down the corridor, which you peer into, looking for any sign of him.

A closet, another closet, the laundry room… it feels like a futile task at this point- not to mention, the sinking feeling that you’re intruding, poking into every room in the house like this.

But at the end of the hallway, just across the staircase from Joon’s room, lies one more closed door you haven’t tried yet, and you’re sure this one has to be his.

With a deep breath, you balance the mug of coffee on the plate you’re carrying, bringing your free hand up to knock, just once.

No answer.

You pause for a moment, debating whether to just leave and drop the idea of an apology altogether. But you don’t, instead forcing yourself to knock once more this time, a little harder than the first.

And after muffled sounds of shuffling about, the door finally opens again, Minho standing with a confused expression on his face. He has a pair of earphones in, one side pulled out to hear you, his glasses sat on his face and a number of textbooks on the bed behind him.

“Is Joon okay?” He asks, looking down the hall in panic as you meet his gaze.

“What? Oh! Yes, he’s fine. He’s sleeping.”

“Oh. What are you…”

“I… made you some breakfast. I know you didn’t have any before your exam this morning. And no, gum isn’t a breakfast food.” You chuckle lightly as you hold the items out to him, and Minho looks down at them, blinking a few times before speaking.

“Oh. Uh, thanks. You didn’t have to do that.”

“It’s no problem. Should I leave them with you?”

“Oh, you can put them on the desk over there,” Minho replies, and it’s then that you notice his hands are full with papers. He steps aside to let you in, gesturing to the desk with a piece of paper, and you oblige, clearing the space of a few scattered items and setting down his breakfast.

When you turn around to look at the place, your lips part in awe at the sight of the grandiosity of it. Minho’s room has bigger windows than any of the others you’ve seen, concave around a crescent-shaped seating area that boasts tall ceilings and large glass windows. There are books lining the floors, the desk space and even the window sills, many of them left bookmarked or lying open where they sit.

His giant wooden bed frame is almost hidden behind a hanging curtain, and his desk is nearly inhabitable at the amount of university paraphernalia that lives on its surface.

“Wow,” you say, craning your neck to look around the room. “It’s really nice in here.”

“Thanks,” Minho says awkwardly, toying with a loose hem on his pants.

“You really like reading,” you comment, taking note of the books he has lying around. When you say this, Minho seems to stiffen a bit, shutting some of the books and lining them on their spines along his shelves.

“Yeah,” he mutters, dropping a few books and kicking them away from him.

You nod at him, pursing your lips, well aware that you’re in the midst of yet another awkward interaction with him, but wanting to fulfill the reason you came up here all the same.

“Listen,” you begin. “I wanted to apologize. I don’t know how much you heard of that, but I assume it was enough to be hurt by it. And you’re justified in being hurt. It was totally uncalled for of me to say those things- and sure, you might be a quiet person. But that doesn’t make it okay for me to go around airing it out like it’s my business. In fact I shouldn’t even be on my phone on the job. I’m here to watch your brother, and I get paid for that service, and it’s completely unprofessional-”

“It’s cool,” Minho says, an unchanging expression on his face.

“Oh, um… I mean, if you want to fire me I totally understand.”

Minho chuckles softly, and then shakes his head. “I’m not going to fire you. I am quiet. It’s cool. Really.”

“I mean, I totally get that-”

“Unless you want to be fired?” He inquires with a half-smile, and you chuckle softly in response.

“I really don’t. I love watching your brother.”

“Good,” he replies. “Then we’re all good.”

And although you want to say something else to him, you don’t, feeling as though you should be satisfied with the state of the conversation. You apologized, he forgave you, and you haven’t lost your job. And he’s still quiet, but that’s just who he is.

When Joon wakes from his afternoon nap, it’s nearly 3pm. He’s a crying mess when he’s up again, flailing his arms around to beg for a bottle, which you promptly prepare for him after a diaper change.

With Joon in your arms, you get some chores around the house finished, including vacuuming the rugs, dusting off the furniture and tidying Joon’s toys that are usually scattered about his nursery.

Doing chores wasn’t an agreement between you and Mrs. Lee- in fact, she usually urges you to focus on your schoolwork and take breaks when you’re not caring for Joon. But you want to, feeling compelled to take care of the space as much as you care for Joon. Although tensions are still somewhat present between you and Minho, the Lee household feels comfortable to you by this point, almost like a second home now.

After chores, the library calls out to you again, evening beginning to fall over the neighborhood and painting the sky with vibrant hues of an autumnal sunset.

The windows are still rolled open from earlier, and your velvet couch looks particularly inviting at this hour, beams of sunset setting it aglow and luring you to choose a book from the cherry wood shelves around you.

So you do, selecting a children’s book about animals, comfortably sprawling out on the chair with Joon in your arms. He eyes the book curiously, spreading his short, chubby fingers over the cover and tapping repeatedly, as if asking you to read to him.

And you do, setting the book on your knee to angle the pages toward him, as you begin to vocalize the choppy sentences to him.

“A is for apple, hanging from a tree,” you say, caressing his stubby fingers as he pouts in focus. “B is for buzzing bumblebee.”

Joon’s lips curl into a smile, making his best attempt to clap as you point out the colorful images to him.

“C is for crab, walking in the sand… D is for dolphin, swimming toward the land!”

Joon laughs hysterically now, clapping his little hands and rocking back and forth in your lap. You laugh, too, at his darling reaction, and give him a little kiss on the head as he fiddles with the cover of the book.

It’s moments like this that reaffirm the notion for you that this job was the right idea, after all. You’re inexplicably happy alongside him like this, seeing the world through his eyes and rediscovering things you would otherwise take for granted, like silly picture books or doing chores with him in your arms. You feel so protective of him, eager to make his mom proud and provide a safe, nurturing environment for him as his babysitter- not because you’re paid to do it, but because he now holds a special place in your heart.

The sound of someone clearing their throat startles you from the doorway, and you look up to find Minho standing there, an amused smirk tugging at his lips.

“Did you… want something to eat? I was going to order takeout, unless you wanted something else.”

“Sure,” you reply, propping Joon up a little closer to your chest. “Anything’s fine with me.”

“I’ll get Chinese, then,” Minho says nodding. He averts your gaze a little, but you can tell he’s just a little awkward when he’s face-to-face with you like this. And perhaps your best friend is right- perhaps it’s not unusual of him to feel territorial over his household. After all, you are here almost every hour of the day, making yourself comfortable in almost every room, tending to the chores here and eating food from their kitchen. You suppose you would be irritated at the thought of it, too.

As Minho leaves to place an order, you take Joon back to the nursery, where you gently put him to sleep for the evening and program his baby monitor to play calm ocean noises again. It’s like clockwork- he’s out like a light, and the minute he leaves your arms, you’re exhausted, too. The stress of watching over him while balancing your school work might finally be getting to you now- you’re undoubtedly tired, your limbs aching from sauntering about this big house all day with Joon in your arms. And although you’re on a good track, you can hardly remember which assignment pertains to each of your classes these days.

When Minho returns almost an hour later, he holds a thin plastic bag in hand, his other one clutching a fistful of cutlery and two plates. He gives you a small nod when he enters the library, and you put away your laptop to join him on the floor in front of the coffee table.

For a moment, he says nothing as he prepares a plate for you, sliding a cup of wonton soup toward you and dividing portions of chow mein and tofu with wooden chopsticks.

You watch as he breaks a spring roll in half, holding both sides up and comparing to make sure they’re even.

“You’re very precise,” you say with a soft laugh, and a breathy chuckle emits from his lips, too.

“I’m trying to make sure it’s even.”

“However you cut it is fine,” you respond, pleasantly surprised at how polite he is.

When he’s finished dividing your portions, he slides a plate to you, setting a plastic fork down on the napkin beside you and ushering to the food.

“Enjoy,” he says, shooting you a small smile.

And the two of you eat in silence, the room quiet, aside from the sounds of slurping soup present between you two. Although it’s quiet, it feels comfortable, having him keep you company like this. It’s a change of pace from your usual days babysitting in the Lee household.

“How is your school work?” Minho interrupts your thoughts, and you’re momentarily taken aback by him initiating the conversation first.

“It’s good,” you respond, poking at the vegetables on your plate with a chopstick. “It’s on my own time, so I mostly just have to make sure I’m staying on track. But I’m finding it easy to get through despite watching Joon in the daytime.”

Minho nods in response, keeping his gaze set on the bowl of soup in front of him.

“How did your exam go?” you ask, and Minho cocks his head a little. “I got full marks,” he responds after a moment of silence.

“That’s great! I guess you were right about skipping breakfast having something to do with your academic success, then.”

And Minho laughs for the first time- not a chuckle or a giggle, but a laugh, holding one hand up to his mouth as he does. His laugh is gentle and melodic, filling the room around him with its sound, and you can’t help but laugh, too.

“I suppose,” he responds. “I also go nowhere without those philosophy books, so I have them memorized like the back of my hand.”

“Philosophy major?” you voice back, and Minho nods.

“So Love and Limerence is like second nature to you at this point.”

Minho gets a little awkward at this, his smile fading a little as he pokes around his chow mein. “Yeah,” he says quietly. “You could say that.”

And fearing you’ve somehow offended him, you change the subject again.

“Well I’m a business major,” you chime in. “So we don’t get interesting reads at all. And I’m not lugging around a six-pound textbook about returns on investments in my backpack.”

He laughs again, and you feel satisfied at the motion. Making him laugh feels like an exciting feat, like you’ve succeeded at something after trying so hard to. And considering how hard you’ve been trying to break down his walls these days, maybe it is an exciting feat, getting to know the stranger you’ve been sharing a home with for one month now.

“Business is a great field,” Minho says, slurping down the remainder of his soup. “Your parents must be really proud of the direction you’re headed.”

You shrug in response. “They’re indifferent. I don’t have a great relationship with them. They mostly just want me out of their hair once I graduate.”

“You have any post-college plans?” Minho inquires.

“I finished an internship before this whole babysitting gig, actually. I want to travel a bit after graduation, and then I’ll really settle down for the whole 9-5 working life.”

“Where are you hoping to travel to?”

There’s a glint in Minho’s eyes as he presses you for answers, like he’s genuinely interested in what you have to say. It makes you feel all warm inside- not many people usually care what you’re up to these days, your family trying their hardest to send you away to work another job and your most of your friends having drifted apart when you began university. Even the friends you do have are more distant these days, considering their classes are still in person, and you don’t have a need to be back on campus anymore. It’s a bit of a lonely life you lead, so being here beside Minho feels different, but pleasant.

“I’m not sure,” you say with a smile. “I’m not really sure where I belong yet.”

“Hey, I don’t know where I belong, either,” Minho echoes. “So that makes two of us.”

When the two of you are finished with dinner, Minho takes your plates downstairs, despite you offering, and you’re briefly left alone in the library. It’s much later than usual now, nearing 9:00, when you’re usually home by 7. The house also has a different vibe to it this hour, many of the rooms feeling much dimmer despite the same lamps being on, and the corridors feeling much quieter and more haunting. You feel a wave of sleepiness wash over you, and though you don’t want to be asleep when Mrs. Lee arrives, you can’t help but shut your eyes for a few minutes. You can still make out the shape of the bookshelves behind your heavy eyelashes, trying your best not to close your eyes completely, but your mind has already wandered off to slumber, and inevitably, your body follows shortly after.

You’re somewhere between sleep and consciousness when you feel Minho enter the room once again, looming over you like he wants to ask you something. But he says nothing- instead, he unfolds a knit blanket above you, sprawling it out over your legs and pulling it up to your torso. And you hadn’t realized how cold you were before he did, because you’re almost instantly with a wave of warmth and comfort over your listless body.

It feels almost uncharacteristic or Minho to carry out an action this polite- but as he takes his seat across from you, watching as you doze off peacefully, you think he may finally be coming around to you.

“I’m ditching my second class again today,” Minho announces the next morning at breakfast. He doesn’t eat much, you notice, as he bites into a single apple and hoists his backpack further up his shoulders.

“I’ll be home a bit earlier,” he then continues, eyeing you a little, and you give him a little nod.

“Then help with lunch,” Mrs. Lee says, gathering her own briefcase for work. “Y/n shouldn’t do it all by herself when you’re here.”

“Oh, it’s no worry at all,” you quickly chime in, not wanting to be the reason Minho refutes his mother’s words. “It’s what I’m here to do, after all.”

“No worries,” Minho says back to you. “I’ll be home around noon and we can prepare something together.”

For some reason, your heart flutters a little at the implication of doing something alongside Minho- something so planned and seemingly intimate. You normally just take the days as they come, so having a commitment hanging over your head like this is a little nerve-racking. And in all your worrying, you don’t respond to Minho, realizing only as he’s exiting the house with his apple in hand.

“I might be late again today,” Mrs. Lee turns to you, snapping you out of your trance. “But Minho can stay for the remainder of the time. I’ll still pay you the full amount like I did yesterday-”

“I’m happy to stay again,” you reply to her. “Like I said, it’s what I’m here to do.”

She smiles in return, clasping her hands and gesturing to the food on the table.

“I can’t get Minho to eat for the life of me, but help yourself to whatever you’d like. And thank you again, for staying.”

You’re reading to Joon in the living room when Minho arrives home from school. He kicks off his shoes dramatically, tossing his bag on the floor and breathing out a heavy sigh while you thumb through the pages of a new picture book.

“Hi,” Minho says first, his expression remaining stoic and unchanging.

“Hey,” you reply, hoisting Joon a little further up in your arms. “How was school?”

“Terrible,” he responds, making his way around the granite island to collect another apple.

“Why’s that?”

“Professor Kim,” he says curtly, polishing the apple on his button down shirt before taking a generous bite. “A three hour lecture on a Friday really wasn’t a smart choice. ”

You chuckle a little to yourself, adjusting your position on the floor and trying to balance Joon in your embrace. Minho takes notice of your struggle, abandoning his apple on the counter to come take Joon from your arms.

“Thanks,” you say, dusting off your legs as you stand again. “I’m going to get started on something for Joon to eat if you want to wait around. Unless you’re sticking to this exclusively-apple diet.”

Minho chuckles to himself and shakes his head. “I’ll help. We don’t have much prepared right now and I really need to go grocery shopping.” He secures Joon in his high chair, cocking his head toward the fridge.

“Could you just grab his orange juice? It should be the blue bottle on the right.”

And you comply with his request, promptly locating the blue sippy cup and handing it to Minho.

“Thank you,” he says, setting it down on the white tray in front of Joon and twisting it open. “This should be enough to hold him off until we can whip something up with the few ingredients we have. I want to do something with those sweet potatoes, they’re reaching the end of their time.”

Joon is a little fussy as he reaches for his sippy cup, flailing his arms around and sliding the cup across the tray to the edge. The cap seems to loosen as he does, tilting dangerously to one side.

“I got it,” you say to Minho, as you approach Joon. You retrieve the cup from the edge of the tray, twisting off the cap again to secure it properly. And as you do, Joon lets out a particularly loud yelp, knocking his hand toward you and letting the bottle fall off the tray entirely.

As you realize what’s happening, you bring two hands up to push it away from you, but you’re too late- the entirety of the bottle’s contents are spilt onto your shirt, completely soaking you and dripping onto the floor with loud, wet noises.

Minho doesn’t see what happened, but he turns around at the sound of your loud gasp, his eyes widening at the sight of you. Even your hair’s gotten wet, stringy pieces falling into your face, damp with the tangy scent of orange juice and dripping down your shirt. His mind races with guilty thoughts, feeling as though he should have stayed watching Joon, being the one to have been caught in the crossfire of his tantrum instead. Joon’s always fussy before meals- he knows this very well. As his mind races with the urgency to grab a towel, a rag- something, his eyes graze to your t-shirt, and he practically freezes.

Your thin white t-shirt is soaked like the rest of you, painting a clear outline of your black bra as the cold contents drip down your chest and torso. The see-through fabric sticks to your body like a cellophane wrapping, outlining every inch of you, every curve and every raised goosebump as you shudder at the sensation. Minho’s eyes remain locked on your dampened breasts for an embarrassing amount of time, taking careful note of the way your hardened nipples practically protrude through the thin white fabric, almost appearing increasingly noticeable with every passing second. The delicate curves of your stomach are accentuated with your skin-tight shirt, even your navel now visible.

A shake of your hands finally snaps him out of his trance, and you wrap your arms around yourself in a futile effort to cover yourself.

“I’m sorry,” you utter to him, at a loss for words at the notion of being so exposed to him. And Minho is quick to shake his head, now scrambling for a towel.

“Don’t apologize,” he says, pulling a towel off the oven handle and sliding it to you. “Here, use this and I’ll go get a larger towel from upstairs and a change of clothes.”

You want to deny the offer, feeling shameful for having already intruded this much on the Lee household and still needing more from them. But as you look down at your t-shirt, you know you don’t have a choice, the fabric now feeling cold and uncomfortable as it sticks to your flesh.

“Thanks,” you say to him, giving a small nod and not moving your hands from your chest.

And Minho retreats upstairs quickly, trying his best to avert his gaze as you remain in the kitchen.

As Joon babbles incoherently next to you, you can’t help but feel stupid, a sense of shame and embarrassment replacing the excitement you had to be preparing lunch alongside Minho for the afternoon. You’re in disbelief he’s practically seen you half naked like this, and you feel inadequate at not being able to stop Joon from committing the incident in the first place. As you run your hands up and down the raised goosebumps on your arms, you do your best to hold back tears, hoping Minho won’t think less of you for being caught in such a humiliating accident.

Minho is gone for a little while, and you blot at the wet patches on your shirt as you wait, Joon now laughing at your messy state. You can’t help but laugh a little, too, admittedly amused at what a disaster the afternoon has been- and you haven’t even begun the cooking part of it yet.

When he returns, he tosses you a large white bath towel and a gray t-shirt, still keeping his gaze on the floor instead of on yours.

“Here,” he says simply, his veiny arm scratching the back of his head. “I can also get a sweater if you’re cold.”

As you observe the t-shirt, you realize it’s one of his, not one of Mrs. Lee’s. For some reason, you’d assumed Minho would opt for a woman’s clothes as your change, but the t-shirt has clearly been pulled from his closet, and you blush a little at the idea of wearing his clothes.

“This is fine,” you reply, wrapping the bath towel around your body and excusing yourself to the bathroom.

You peel the sticky clothes off your body, crumpling them into a pile and changing into Minho’s t-shirt. It’s a bit large on you, but it’s much more comfortable, hanging loosely off your body and covering every bit of you that was previously exposed. His shirt smells like him, too, a pleasant scent of laundry detergent and his musky cologne.

When you exit the bathroom, you gesture to the change of clothes, your wet crumpled clothes balled in your hand. “I kinda look like you now,” you say, and Minho chuckles.

“You can keep it,” he responds, giving you another once-over and nodding shyly. “It looks better on you, anyway.”

He holds his hand out to you for the wet clothes, which he kindly takes from you to put in the wash. As he does, you go to the fridge to retrieve more orange juice for Joon- except there is none. You desperately search for milk, orange juice- any form of a snack that will keep him busy until his mealtime. But the kitchen is void of anything he can consume, and you begin to panic a little, knowing Joon hasn’t eaten in a good while now.

“That was the last of his orange juice,” you say to Minho when he returns. “And there’s not much else for him to snack on.”

Minho searches the kitchen too, digging through cabinets and moving around jars in the fridge to check for expiration dates. But he quickly realizes you’re right- the fridge is even more sparse than he’d assumed it to be.

“I guess we’ll have to make a trip to the store, then. How do you feel about strapping him into a car seat?”

“I’ve never done it,” you reply nervously.

“I can show you,” Minho says, grabbing his keys off the kitchen counter and spinning them around his index finger. “We can do it together.”

The nearest grocery store is just 20 minutes out from the Lee household. Minho drives a fancy black SUV, and he guides you through how to strap Joon into his car seat, which you carry out with no issues. He drives with one hand on the steering wheel, the other resting casually on the center console as you chat with him about your university courses. For the first time, you notice how Minho seems much more comfortable around you now, cracking jokes occasionally and smiling at your stories about your afternoons alone with Joon. When Joon chimes in from the back seat with his excited babbling, you and Minho babble equally in response, sharing laughter at the ridiculous exchanges among the three of you.

You opt to carry Joon inside the grocery store while Minho walks alongside you, checking off a list he routinely uses to stock up on all of Joon’s favorite foods. And the atmosphere around you is homely, instilling the same sense of comfort in you as your afternoons alone with Joon. One that reminds you why you’re doing this job in the first place- you feel respected here, like your efforts don’t go unnoticed, and like you belong. It fills the lonely void inside of you with the sounds of Joon’s laughter, Minho’s tales of his classes and the trivial tasks of grocery store runs and learning to maneuver a baby car seat.

“I think that’s it,” Minho says as he checks the list one last time. “Milk, juice, bread…” he reads the items one by one again, and then nods affirmatively when he’s ensured they’re in the basket.

“That’s it,” he repeats, shooting you a small smile. “Let’s go pay.”

An older cashier gestures you to her lane at the registers, beginning to scan your items as Minho places them down on the conveyor belt. And then she gives a little wave to Joon, who curiously stares back at her.

“What a beautiful baby,” she says, pausing from scanning with a jar of mashed carrots in her hand.

Joon smiles in response, a trickle of drool escaping his lips.

“And what a beautiful family,” she continues, looking back and forth between you and Minho. “It’s not easy being young parents, but I can tell the two of you are doing a fine job at it.”

“Oh,” you say, chuckling lightly. “We’re not-”

“Thank you,” Minho interrupts, placing an arm around your waist and pulling you a little closer to him.

“We don’t get told that very often.”

You almost freeze at the contact, butterflies erupting in your stomach as he keeps his hand on the small of your back. This woman thinks the two of you are a couple- and worse, Minho is playing along with it. You can’t figure out why he’d entertain such a blatant lie, but you don’t interrupt him either, curious to see where he’s taking this little bit.

“People can be so unfair,” the cashier replies, shaking her head. “As long as the child is cared for, your status shouldn’t matter.”

“Exactly,” Minho replies, throwing his hand in the air like she’s making a point that pertains to him. “You know, when we got married, everyone told us it would never work. And now look at us- our child just turned 1 and we’re already making plans for a second honeymoon.”

“That’s amazing!” The woman says, clasping her hand over her heart like she’s touched by the bogus story.

“It is, isn’t it honey?” Minho says, turning to you.

Thoughts swirl your mind about this performance he’s putting on, but you’re undoubtedly entertained by the whole thing, stifling laughter as you nod in response.

“It is amazing,” you say finally. “We eloped and had a shotgun wedding- booked it to Italy right after and now we’re thinking of taking the little one to Paris for a real ceremony.”

The older woman removes her glasses now, wiping her eyes and shaking her head in disbelief. You can’t help but feel bad for her, seeing how easily she’s falling for your blatant lies, but Minho shows no remorse, grinning ear to ear and keeping his hand on the small of your back.

“Well I’ll tell you what,” the woman says, putting her glasses back on and shifting her eyes around the store.

“Since you guys just made my day, I’m going to provide you with our senior discount. It’s not everyday I see a young couple so beautiful raising such a darling little child.”

“Oh, you really don’t-” you start to say, and Minho interrupts you before you can finish.

“That would mean the world to us,” he says in an exaggerated voice, giving the cashier a little bow. “It would help us out a ton.”

You want to protest, to slap Minho in his pretty little face and ask what the hell he thinks he’s doing lying for a discount like this, but you’re afraid the cashier will see right through your whole stunt and reprimand both of you. So you just nod and let Minho take the lead again.

“Thank you,” you echo back to her,” holding Joon’s stubby little fingers as the woman types a lengthy code into the computer.

And Minho smiles at you, shooting you a little wink as he gathers boxes of cereal and jars of food in his arms.

“What was that?” You practically yell as you exit the store, balancing Joon in one arm and a bag of groceries in another. “You totally lied to her.”

“I didn’t lie,” Minho says. “I told her a different reality.”

“That is literally what a lie is,” you echo back to him, securing Joon in his car seat and lining grocery bags on the floor. Minho slides into the driver's seat again, putting his keys in the ignition but not yet starting the car as he waits for you to get in, too.

“I mean, that was like a 10% discount,” you continue, huffing frustratedly as you wait for him to speak. “How is that worth telling someone a whole list of lies?”

“You know, there’s this really cool theory called the anthropic principle,” Minho begins, looking straight ahead through the windshield. “Suggests the existence of a multitude of universes.”

“What?”

“So,” he continues. “Philosophically speaking, maybe in one of those we're married, and we have a child, and our honeymoon was in Italy.”

You stay quiet for a moment, pondering his words, completely unsure of if he’s flirting with you or teasing you right now.

“And maybe,” he chimes in again. “In one of them, we robbed the store and killed the cashier. And in another, we don’t even know each other.”

“What are you getting at?” You say, narrowing your eyes in confusion.

“It’s not lying,” Minho says with a smile as he finally starts up the car. “We just told her about a different reality.”

“So it’s lying,” you say with a smile, unable to hold back the giggle that escapes your lips.

“A little,” he finally says. “But it was fun, right?”

And you start to say no, but you can’t get the words out, aware you’ll be lying twice today if you do.

Minho takes your silence as confirmation, a grin plastered on his face as he rests one arm behind your headrest to pull out of the parking lot. And you can’t help but smile, too, the spontaneous thrill of lying to the cashier admittedly being some of the most fun you’ve had all week. And the conclusion stands- Minho’s a little odd. But he’s great company.

Mrs. Lee is late again tonight, the second hand on the clock ticking in slow intervals as it nears 10pm. You yawn for the umpteenth time tonight, exhausted from having done so much today, wanting nothing more than to sleep in the comfort of your own bed at home and mentally recharge for another day of this tomorrow. But you’ve promised to wait for her, always eager to wait it out until the last second, because Mrs. Lee always expresses her sincerest gratitude when you wait for her.

“Sorry, she’s really late today,” Minho says as he lowers the volume on the television. You completed a few more chores around the house after dinner while Minho powered through his schoolwork, putting Joon to bed before settling on the sofa and watching old cartoon reruns. Now you’ve been in and out of sleep for the better part of an hour, Minho remaining close by watching infomercials again, peering at your tired figure and feeling guilty that you’ve been here so long.

“It’s okay,” you reply quietly, letting out another yawn. You cross your arms over yourself, still dressed comfortably in Minho’s t-shirt, and do your best to keep your gaze on the television.

Tonight Minho is stuck on an infomercial for artificial plants, the dull narration lulling you to sleep even further as he checks the time on his watch and glances nervously at the front door.

Minho cranes his neck at your figure again, not missing the way gray bags hang heavy below your eyes, your lashes half-lidded as you feign sleep and force your gaze onto the infomercial.

“Don’t you have an early exam tomorrow?” You say to Minho, another yawn escaping your lips as you speak. “Don’t wait up on my account. You should get some sleep.”

Minho shuts off the television, standing up from where he’s sitting and dusting off his pants.

“I’ll take you home,” he announces, fishing around on the table for his car keys.

“It’s okay,” you reply, not wanting to inconvenience him anymore than you already have today. “I can walk to the bus stop.”

“You’re not walking,” Minho retorts, scoffing as you sit up and rub your tired eyes with the back of your hand. “It’s pitch black outside.”

“It’s fine,” you say, gathering your book bag and rushing to put your shoes on. It’s a race between the two of you now, Minho scrambling to locate his car keys while you get ready to leave for the evening.

“It’s really not a problem- where are my keys?” Minho mutters to himself, patting the pockets on his jacket and rearranging stacks of papers on the coffee table.

“I’m fine, really.”

“No, I’ll drive you,” Minho says, still tossing aside the mess he’s made to locate his keys.

“I’ll walk,” you reiterate again, and Minho finally exhales frustratedly.

“Then I’ll walk with you,” he finally announces, ditching the car keys altogether and stopping to look at you. He looks tired, too, evident bags under his eyes and his hair tousled from running his hands through it frustratedly.

“Minho, I really don’t want to burden you-”

“It’s not a burden.”

As he speaks, you hear Joon’s baby monitor alerting you that he’s awake for the evening, wailing loudly when he realizes that he’s alone. It’s perfect timing, too, Minho already having planned to wake him up so he can walk you back.

“Wait here,” Minho says to you as he begins toward the stairs. “I’ll get his harness.”

The dim street lights illuminate the dark paved roads, a crisp chill in the air as you walk alongside Minho with your hands in your pockets.

Joon sits comfortably in his harness against Minho’s chest, curiously taking in the atmosphere around him as you walk in silence to your bus stop. It’s not a long walk, only 20 minutes from Minho’s, but you feel admittedly much safer with Minho by your side, his and Joon’s presence feeling homely even at this hour. For nearly the entirety of the walk, the two of you say nothing, too tired to engage in conversation, but still comfortable in the presence of each other, and not needing to say anything. Joon babbles saliva every now and then, Minho bringing a finger up to wipe his chin, and the only other sounds are that of crickets and the gentle sway of the trees.

“This is me,” you say to Minho when you reach the familiar blue bench of your stop.

You sit on one side of the bench, slinging your book bag over beside you and crossing your legs. And to your surprise, Minho occupies the other side, one hand resting gently on the back of Joon’s head while the other pats his back gently.

“You don’t have to wait,” you tell Minho quickly, and he just shakes his head silently in response.

The silence between you remains, Joon toying with the collar of Minho’s shirt as you wait for the bus. There’s so much you want to ask Minho, so much you still want to find out from him. You’re well aware that you haven’t quite figured him out yet, but you’re undoubtedly sure that he is a nice guy, after all. From lending you his t-shirt, waiting up for you on late nights, even walking you to your bus stop and waiting for the bus with you. You think briefly back to his little joke at the grocery store, smiling to yourself when you remember he’d chosen to pretend you were a married couple for no other reason than to make you laugh after having had such a rough day. And his innate fascination with looking at everything through a philosophical lens, the passion for his favorite subject so robustly present wherever he goes.

“What’s that theory again?” You ask Minho as your thoughts verbalize amidst the silence.

“Hm?”

“The one about the universe.”

“The anthropic principle?” He questions, and you hum in response.

“Yeah, that one. Do you think there are like, a million versions of us right now, just…sitting here?”

“Sure,” Minho replies. “But the conditions would have to be just right.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, the theory states that conditions have to be just right for us to coexist in the universe we’re in right now. It’s sort of like a coincidence that this one evolved so that we could thrive in it. So there might be other versions of us, just not as definitive. We might be rocks, or bugs. Or maybe there’s a more advanced version, where we’re still on our honeymoon in Italy.”

“Or the one where we killed that cashier,” you chime in.

“Exactly,” Minho replies, a small smile tugging at his lips.

You ponder his words for a moment.

“Do they all follow the same timeline?” You ask him.

“What do you mean?”

“Do they all last forever? What if we got divorced? Would we part ways in every universe?”

Minho stays quiet for a moment, thinking back to the philosophical theories tucked in the back of his mind.

“I don’t know,” he finally replies. “I’d like to think some versions have a happy ending, but maybe some of them don’t.”

As silence falls over you again, your bus finally turns the corner, making its way down the street toward your stop.

“That’s me,” you say, getting up and gathering your belongings again.

Minho stands up, too, saying nothing as the bus finally halts in front of you, the brakes screeching to a stop with the loud exhaust of the doors as they open.

“Thanks,” you say to Minho before getting on. “For walking me.”

“It’s no problem,” he replies, shooting you a tired smile.

Minho watches as you board the bus, taking your seat toward the back. He scans the aisles momentarily, making sure you’re sat somewhere safe, away from anyone he might deem sketchy at this hour. And when he feels confident you’ll make it home okay, he brings Joon’s hand up in front of him, giving you a little wave as he watches you smile back through the tinted windows, sending him off with a wave back.

From then on, things shift between the two of you. Minho is a constant, always offering to walk you home on late nights to engage in discussions about your university work or his favorite theories. When he’s home early from his classes, the two of you enjoy cooking for Joon together, making trips to the grocery store where the cashiers are now fully convinced you’re a married couple. On late nights, the two of you often engage in lighthearted philosophical debates while you wait for Mrs. Lee to get home for the evening. When he’s walking you home for the night, doing homework alongside you or just passing by, Minho indulges you in all his favorite philosophical questions, and you entertain them, using the opportunity to get a better glimpse into his mind and how he thinks.

It’s exactly this that tears down Minho’s walls, you find- he, in all his philosophically-educated glory, sharing his perspective while you poke holes in his arguments and reach a conclusion together. Sometimes you’ll reach a stalemate, the argument fizzling out with no clear answer. And sometimes he can change your mind almost instantly, the arguments leaving his lips like second nature, always quick to persuade you in the opposite direction and provide clear reasoning. He’s very skilled at his work, and you quickly realize why he’s so passionate about philosophy in the first place.

It’s not something Minho’s used to yet- having a companion like this, one who actually cares about anything he has to say. Someone to come home to, somebody to bask in the simplicities of life with and affirm that he’s not completely incapable of making real human connections. And admittedly, maybe he loves playing house with you, coming home to your home-cooked meals and caring for the baby together.

Maybe this version of the universe deems you a babysitter, and he, just an outcast. But sometimes Minho swears he can see different versions where you’re so much more than that to each other.

In late November, you take your first week off, leaving on a small family trip to a city just a few hours out to go see extended family.

You tell Minho of your little excursion the week prior, and he pretends to be disheartened, but you know deep down he must be relieved to have some space to himself again. Of course you’re not able to watch Joon, and Mrs. Lee has a friend watch him in your absence, but you’re surprised at how much you miss the Lee household when you’re not there. The trip to the city is filled with repetitive questions from family about your major, your internship, your potential salary in an entry-level position and general university questions. And yet all you catch yourself thinking about is Joon, and Mrs. Lee and especially Minho.

You wonder what he’s doing in the comfort of his grand room all by himself, surrounded by books and tall windows. Minho once told you that he can go a whole day without talking when he’s not having philosophical debates with you over coffee. You wonder if he’s talked today, or if he attended his classes or how his exam on Tuesday went. Thoughts of him plague your mind every waking second- whether Minho would like a certain food, if Minho would agree with this statement, even what the people around you would think if you dragged him along and played house with him like you do back home. In this version of the universe, maybe he’s reading a book or watching a movie, but in another, he could be right here, telling his string of lies to your extended family.

On the last day of your family vacation, you find yourself in an old bookstore, and all you can think about is Minho. He’d love it here, you think, grazing your fingertips along the old cracked spines and yellowing pages. And as you scan through the philosophy section, several of the books already piquing your interest, you spot it.

The small familiar crimson book, just barely larger than your hand, delicate to the touch and painted with the same Cupid depiction as the one you know so well. A first edition copy of Dorothy Tennov’s Love and Limerence. You can’t help but smile to yourself, scanning the book’s contents briefly before closing it again and bringing it up to the counter. It’s not like you’re trying to worsen this little developing crush you have on Minho, but he seems to be everywhere you go- and candidly, you just want to have him figured out.

When you return to the Lee household from your vacation, the atmosphere is calm, sunbeams shining through the large glass windows and illuminating the house with a romantic glow. Joon eats his breakfast well, downing his orange juice and causing you little trouble throughout the day. And Minho arrives just after 3, his backpack slung over his shoulder and a book in hand.

Your heart beats erratically to see him again, trying your best to avert his gaze as he enters through the front door and kicks off his shoes. When he makes his way through the kitchen, you attempt to look busy, wiping down the counters with a kitchen rag and balancing Joon in your arms.

“Hi,” Minho says, a little shyly as you keep your eyesight on the granite counter below you.

“Hey,” you respond, pretending like you hadn’t noticed him enter the room, when in reality, you’ve been well aware of his arrival since he parked his car out front.

“How was your trip?” Minho asks, setting down his backpack and loosening the collar of his sweater.

He’s dressed for the chilly weather outside, a simple black knit sweater paired with blue jeans.

“It was good,” you reply, folding the rag with one hand and setting it aside. “I kinda missed it here.”

Minho smiles at you nervously, toying with the hem of his sweater as he hears you speak.

“It was pretty quiet without you here. I think Joon missed you.”

“Did he?” You question excitedly, poking at Joon with your finger and cooing at him. “Is that right? You missed me?” And Joon giggles excitedly, smiling between the two of you.

When the room falls quiet again, Minho clears his throat like he wants to say something, but he doesn’t, instead keeping his gaze fixed on yours. The room is teeming with awkward tension between the two of you, two hearts clouded in desire to act on this conflicting emotion of fleeting lust and a mutual understanding of each other, but neither one of you say anything, letting it die with your silence and circle your minds aimlessly again.

“I got you something,” you say suddenly, and Minho’s heart quickens a little.

“Me?” He questions, pointing to himself as if you need clarity of who he speaks of.

“Yes, you. It’s in my bag upstairs.”

And you begin your ascent to the staircase, motioning for Minho to follow you as you bring Joon with you.

“Close your eyes,” you tell Minho when you‘ve entered the library again.

“Should I be scared?” He asks, a soft chuckle escaping his lips.

“Close them!” You exclaim, and he finally puts his hands out in front of him, shutting his eyes, a big grin plastered on his face. You place the book in Minho’s palms gently, making sure to position it so that the cover is facing him properly.

“Now open.”

When Minho opens his eyes again, he doesn’t even need to read the words before knowing what it is. He’s immediately familiar with the first edition of Dorothy Tennov’s Love and Limerence he holds in his hands, uniquely characterized by the contrasting art style to his, and the much older, yellowing pages.

“My book,” Minho says, biting his lip as he holds back a bigger smile, one that will most definitely point to the incriminating fact that he’s smitten.

“Your book,” you echo, leaning on the wall across from him. “It’s a first edition. The bookkeeper said they’re pretty rare to come by.”

“You didn’t have to-”

“Don’t worry about it,” you reply, fixing Joon’s hair and averting Minho’s gaze. You’re afraid if you make eye contact with him, this whole nonchalant front will crumble down in front of you, because you’re embarrassingly smitten with him, too.

“Thank you,” Minho says, thumbing the raised gold-foiled cover outline of Cupid. “I’ll go put it with the rest of them.”

And he disappears down the corridor, his book tucked in the endeared clutch of his hands.

While Minho adds his book to the rest of his collection, you put Joon down for his nap, gently placing him on the soft blanket in his crib and adjusting the baby monitor. He blinks up at you a few times, his lips pulling into a shaky smile as his lashes finally flutter shut and a wave of sleepiness washes over him. You exit the room quietly, closing the door just halfway like you always do, and then make your way down the corridor to Minho’s room. The door is left ajar, but you hear him shuffling about, and you enter after giving a gentle knock.

Minho seems startled at this, jumping up from where he’s standing, in front of his bookshelf with Love and Limerence held open in the palms of his hands. He shuts it quickly, shoving it on the top with another stack of books, and then almost shields his bookshelf as he turns to face you.

“I didn't hear you come in,” he says, nervously shifting his eyes to more stacks of books on his window sill and nightstand.

“I put Joon down for his nap,” you reply, cocking an eyebrow as he stands there awkwardly. “Is… everything okay?”

“Yes,” he says quickly, blinking nervously when he sees you peer over his torso at the bookshelf.

“Where’d you put it?”

“Can’t remember,” Minho says, a breathy chuckle emitting from his lips as he tries his best to avoid talking about it. But you catch on- and you’re certainly not going to let him evade the subject.

“What are you hiding?” You finally ask, eyeing him with a small smile. Minho’s face drops a little, sighing once as he steps aside and grants you full visibility of his bookshelf. There’s nothing out of the ordinary- books of all colors and sizes lined neatly on the shelves, some of them left open or bookmarked. A good amount of them appear to be philosophy books, which doesn’t come as a surprise to you.

“It’s just your books,” you say flatly, and Minho scratches the back of his head before he speaks again.

“Love and Limerence isn’t a required read for university.” He says in a low voice.

“Oh,” you reply, unsure of why it should really matter to you.

“None of them are,” he continues. “It’s just my personal… collection. Of romance novels.”

And then you finally understand.

Minho- the stoic, otherwise quiet being, in all his philosophical studiousness and awkwardness, is a sucker for romance. Once the cogs begin turning in your head, they don’t stop, everything about him now making a little more sense to you. Why he stays locked up in his little tower all day reading book after book, why he’s so hopeful when he speaks of the human condition and of love, why he loves taking care of people so much. He’s just a big softie underneath it all.

“There’s nothing weird about that,” you chime in. “In fact, it’s really cool.”

“Yeah right,” he retorts.

“I’m dead serious. I’ve never met someone with so many copies of Thorns and Roses before.”

Minho shakes his head, moving to sit on his bed with his palms tucked under his legs. His gaze remains locked on the floor, an expression of shame still visible on his face. And when you see him exhale deeply, like he’s been nervously holding his breath all this time, you feel bad for him. If there’s anything you’ve learned about him since meeting him, it’s that he’s really a bit of a dork. You’re not sure you’ve ever seen him look so vulnerable before.

“Which one’s your favorite?” You ask, skimming your finger along the neat row of spines.

He shrugs. “Pride and Prejudice, maybe. But these days it’s Love and Limerence.”

Minho’s voice is trembling, just above a whisper as he reads off his list of favorite novels to you. And you chuckle softly in reply, pulling the little red book out of its respective home on the shelf and tossing it to him.

“Read me your favorite passage.”

He furrows his brows a little, like he thinks you might be making fun of him. But when you take a seat next to him on the bed, wide-eyed and gesturing to the book in his hands, he realizes you’re genuinely asking him to.

“Go on,” you say, gesturing to the book once more.

Minho opens the book to the middle, flipping through yellowing pages with small font. Most of the pages are littered generously with blue sticky notes, Minho’s messy handwriting annotating all his favorite passages. When he finds the page he’s searching for, he eyes you cautiously, as if waiting for permission to begin reading. And with a deep breath, he begins, his voice shaking a little as he finds his footing.

“Now by these presents let me assure you that you are not only in my heart, but my veins, this morning. I turn from you half abashed--yet you haunt me, and some look, word or touch thrills through my whole frame--yes, at the very moment when I am labouring to think of something, if not somebody else.”

At the last words, his gaze meets yours again, eyelashes trembling as he waits for your reaction. He waits for you to laugh, or to dismiss the words, or leave altogether. But you just stare back at him, your heart beating erratically at the poetry he utters, completely in awe with him.

He feels otherworldly at this distance, this intricate fascination with love and human connection. The way his brown tresses fall loosely in front of his big eyes as he speaks, his plump lips pulling into a nervous smile to reveal the row of skewed teeth you find a home in every time. He’s like the passage reads- thrilling your whole frame, consuming you whole and filling your mind with thoughts of him, and his poetry and his kind demeanor. You find yourself a little closer to him, your eyes darting to his lips and then back to his curious eyes, fantasies of him running rampant in your mind.

And Minho keeps his gaze locked on yours, too, leaning in a little closer to you, the book closing on its own as his hand slips away from holding it open and onto the bed beside you. The implications are there, the atmosphere around you heavy with desire and uncertainty, and just as you wield the courage to bring your lips a little closer to his, you’re promptly interrupted.

“Minho-ah!” A voice calls from downstairs. You quickly clock it as Mrs. Lee’s, who must be home early from work.

“I’m home early!” She calls again, confirming your theory, her footsteps getting louder as she makes her way up the stairs.

You sit up promptly, smoothing down your shirt and standing to bow when Mrs. Lee pokes her head in the doorway. Minho stands up too, making the whole situation look unbearably obvious, and you pray she can’t tell what’s going on between the two of you.

“Y/n,” she says with a warm smile. “I’m sorry I forgot to tell you I would be home a little earlier today. Joon has a doctor’s appointment.”

“No worries at all!” You voice back, bowing again as she smiles. “I was actually going to leave early today. I have a bit of a headache.”

“Oh, do you want a cup of tea?” She asks, heavy concern present in her voice.

“No thanks, I think I just need some sleep.”

You turn to Minho, who’s standing with his hands in his pockets, looking a little disappointed as you give him a small bow.

“Take care,” you say to him, pivoting to head back to the library and gather your things.

Minho hears his mom see you out of the front door, chatting briefly with you about your trip and sending you off with a little wave.

He shuts his bedroom door and locks it, sprawling out on the duvet of his bed and running his hands over the book still beside him.

He’s not sure what happened- whether you were about to kiss him, or whether it was just wishful thinking. But every way he interprets the encounter, Minho swears he can feel your yearning for him, too. Is he crazy to think you might feel the same? Maybe he, too, finds it laboring to think of something- if not, someone else, besides you.

Joon is a particularly picky eater in afternoons, making a big fuss of foods he usually devours in the mornings and evenings. He skillfully dodges every spoon, every bite and feigns his interest in even his favorite snacks and desserts. And while you’re usually patient with him, today you’re frustrated, having mentally scolded yourself several times since yesterday’s events.

A part of you wants to ditch all of this, reminding yourself that you’re here to work a job, not lust after the son of the person who hired you. But the other part of you can’t help but imagine how things would be different if you just let yourself fall gracefully into him- he’s so much more than a fleeting thought to you. You want to understand him, having challenged yourself to figuring him out from the moment you came across him. But maybe you want him to understand you, too. You want him to understand that you feel at home whenever he’s around, his philosophical discussions and this game of house you play making you feel like you belong here. You want him to understand that although you know he feels like an outcast, none of his odd quirks matter to you when he’s reading his favorite love stories across from you in the library, catching glimpses of you when he thinks you’re not looking. And that maybe this universe conditioned itself just right so that you took up this job and crossed paths- and that has to mean something bigger.

There’s nothing different about the afternoon following yesterday’s, except for you spending a considerable amount of time on your hair and makeup, the anticipation bubbling inside you at the idea of seeing Minho again. You have no definitive plan, no script of how it’s going to go when he arrives from school. But you also know there’s something in your throat that wants so desperately to get out, and you won’t let it. As Joon toys with the cereal in his bowl, he looks up at you with big, curious eyes, and you wonder what he’s thinking, if anything. He doesn't know anything beyond the simple tasks of eating and sleeping, living with the comfortable knowledge that he’s being cared for. And although it seems much easier, you can’t help but sympathize. What a gift it is to feel- what a gift it is to carry emotions so deeply they eat away at you like this.

You’re infatuated with Minho- that fact stands true. And whether or not it benefits you to do anything about it, you’re determined to do something with all of this feeling, lest it slips through your fingers like he almost did.

You don’t hear Minho come home when he does, busy in the garden tending to Mrs. Lee’s plants when the usual alert of his car pulling into the driveway passes you by. So when he wanders the corridors searching everywhere for you, you don’t take notice.

Minho’s desperate, hoping to ask you to stay just a little bit longer tonight, having also had the epiphany that he’s completely fallen for you, too. And what he hopes to do with it, he’s unsure- but he does know that every romance novel on his shelf would refute the idea of letting this feeling dissipate. Kiss her, tell her, do something. Anything.

He strides down the halls with purpose and vigor, a nervous smile pulling at his face at the thought of seeing you again. It’s all he’s thought about today, having had just two hours of sleep as he sorted out what to say to you. And while he’s not well-versed in the practice of confessing his love, he feels his whole life has been devoted to the very purpose of being here and finding you. The debates you share, midnight walks to the bus stop, the book- he’d be a fool not to reciprocate what you yearn for. And when he doesn’t find you, Minho feels the familiar pit of worry form in his stomach. He’s not accounted for a change of plans, or even what might happen if you reject his admission. He wants to believe so badly that the answer is yes, risking everything just to say something.

20 minutes after he’s been home, Minho receives a phone call, answering in a rush while he checks the upstairs rooms for you.

“Hello?”

“It’s Sujin from class,” the phone at the other end says plainly. “I’m here for our project.”

And Minho freezes, remembering very well that he has a project due very soon, and his partner is here tonight to work on it with him. He sighs heavily into the line at the change in plans, knowing he’ll have to bottle his emotions another day and act on them tomorrow when he can get you alone.

“Oh, right,” Minho responds, making his way to the stairs and jogging down them. “The door should be unlocked.”

He stuffs his phone in his back pocket, making his way to the door to meet Sujin, and as he passes the sliding door to the backyard, he finally sees you. Knelt on the ground in a white sundress, your hands tainted with soil as you tend to the tomato plants and hum to yourself. Minho smiles at the sight of you, the urge to tell you right now stronger than ever. But before he can call out to you, Sujin’s already made her way inside, peering curiously around the place and clutching her purse in hand.

“Wow,” she says, chuckling lightly. “You didn’t tell me you were rich.”

Minho scratches the back of his head awkwardly as she grazes a marble sculpture with her fingers. His eyes remain on you through the glass door, transfixed by the way you tuck your hair behind your ears and pat your dress as you stand up again. Sujin takes note of Minho’s evident distraction, briefly glancing out the window and back to him.

“Where are we working?” She asks, pursing her lips together.

“We can work upstairs,” Minho explains, as you finally make your way inside.

At first you’re confused at the sight, Minho looming over a girl much prettier than you, her long hair styled neatly over one shoulder and a matching formal two-piece hugging her curves beautifully. And then as you see her begin up the stairs in the direction of Minho’s room, you finally understand.

Of course there’s another woman.

Of course there was a catch to all of this, because why else would things condition themselves so perfectly that you’d win him over?

And suddenly everything feels pointless- confessing to him, feeling any ounce of emotion regarding all of this, even working this job. He has a girlfriend, and she’s much prettier than you are. And he's trailing behind her after giving you a shy nod, likely embarrassed at the fact that you’ll be here tending to his household while he fucks her in his upstairs bedroom.

You can’t help but think that perhaps something got lost in translation, because Minho evidently never liked you, and unless this version of the universe magically conditions to work in your favor just once, it’s going to remain that way.

When the tears begin to prick at the corners of your eyes, they don’t stop. You can’t feed Joon without hiccuping through a hot rush of tears that fall from your cheeks onto his tray below him. Joon seems to sense something is wrong, pausing the task of dodging his food to observe the way your face contorts as you wipe your eyes with the back of your hand. And when you do stop to look at him, all you can see is Minho, his eyes and lips resembling exactly that of his elder brother’s.

The chores feel like a futile task now, and you let them sit there for the remainder of the evening you’re working for. In fact, the only thing you do complete is the task of getting Joon to bed when the sun begins to set, marching carefully upstairs to not interrupt Minho’s time with his girlfriend. And the word makes you sick, to think that he’s been stringing you along all while having a girlfriend- a fact he so conveniently left out.

Joon goes down without a fuss, and when he’s finally asleep, you escape the confines of the second story to lock yourself in the downstairs living room and complete your school work. How much of that is spent crying instead, you can’t quite remember.

It’s just after 9 when Sujin leaves for the evening, but you’re not awake to take notice when she does. You wake to the familiar sound of infomercials playing quietly on the television in front of you, Minho sitting on the floor in front of the sofa you occupy. His head hangs as he holds a book in his lap, probably some cheesy romance he projects onto him and his girlfriend, and his thin wireframe glasses rest on the bridge of his nose.

The dull narration on the television advertises jewelry tonight, and you let out a sigh as you feel your swollen eyes adjust to the bright screen in front of you. At this, Minho turns around, giving you a sheepish smile as you try to shut your eyes again. But it’s too late- he’s already seen you awake for the evening.

“Hi,” Minho says for the first time today, bookmarking his page and lowering the volume on the television. “She’s late again today, but I saved you some takeout.”

“I’m not hungry,” you reply quickly, sitting up and reaching for your bag. “In fact, I need to go home.”

“Oh, sure,” Minho replies, a little hurt at your rushed tone. “I can walk you-”

“No need,” you say to him, pulling on your sneakers and doing everything in your power to avert his gaze. He furrows his brows a little, knowing you never reject his offers to walk you home.

“Is everything-”

“Fine. I just need to get home,” you reiterate, finally sitting down and smoothing down your wrinkled dress.

Every part of him is annoying you right now, your mind teeming with the reminder that you’ve been wasting your time trying to know him better while he’s been entertaining a whole girlfriend these past few months.

“Y/n, wait,” Minho calls, still intent on telling you tonight, while the feelings remain stronger than ever. But you’ve already crossed the room to the front door, where you avert his gaze so he won’t see you begin to cry again.

“Bye,” you call to him, not even looking back before you’re turning the knob and seeing yourself out. “Tell Mrs. Lee it was an emergency.”

And he wants to ask if it was, but he can’t, staring at your rushed figure jogging down the street as you distance yourself from him before he can string you along any further.

Thus begins the game of avoidance.

It starts through keeping your conversations with Minho as short as possible, not engaging him when he tells you about theories he’s studied this week or what his days on campus were like. When he asks about your day, you give him one-word responses, muttering a simple “fine” before turning your attention to Joon again.

When Minho asks to go to the grocery store, you pretend you have a headache- for three days straight. So he makes the trips solo, balancing bags on one arm and telling you about how the cashiers have begun to ask where his pretend wife’s been. You give him no reaction, nodding as you feed Joon his dinner and glance at the clock for the umpteeth time, desperate to get away from him.

And the mystery woman remains, marching into the Lee household in afternoons like she owns the place, already having memorized the path to Minho’s room as she makes her way up the stairs and doesn’t acknowledge you. She’s beautiful everyday that she’s here, short skirts and long ponytails you can’t seem to look away from. And she’s even more hypnotic when she’s in the presence of Minho, the two of them as a couple certainly a sight for sore eyes. If they were a married couple, you’d reckon they'd be much more distinguished than you and Minho would.

“Do you want a coffee?” Minho peers into the library one night to ask you. You keep your gaze locked on the computer in front of you, trying your best to keep your guard up as he waits for a response.

“No, thank you,” you say coldly, continuing to work on your essay.

When he realizes you’re not going to say anything else, Minho enters the room reluctantly, his hands shoved in his pockets as he leans against the doorframe and gives you a once-over. You say nothing, still, holding back your emotions so as not to cause a scene. And Minho can tell something’s wrong in the way that you shift your eyes to him briefly and shake your head as if scolding yourself for doing so.

“Did I do something?” Minho finally asks, his voice a little shaky.

“No,” you say quickly, skimming the same sentence on your laptop screen over and over again.

“Are you… sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

He fiddles with a loose thread in the pocket of his pants, keeping his gaze on the floor and thinking about your differing behavior toward him the past week.

“We just haven’t talked much. And you never really leave here anymore. I wanted to make sure I didn’t overstep any boundaries-”

“Overstep?” You interrupt, scanning your eyes over the screen of your computer. “There’s nothing to overstep. I get paid to watch your brother, not hang out with you.”

You feel guilty the minute the words leave your mouth, but you feel even worse knowing he’s just been stringing you along with a girlfriend this whole time. The atmosphere feels akin to when you first met him, awkward and cold, and with tensions high like this, you don’t feel at home in the Lee household anymore.

“Sorry,” Minho says, nodding. “You’re right. I guess I’m overstepping by asking.”

You only look up at him when he leaves, his shoulders sagging as he leaves you alone once again- only this time, you have a feeling he’s going to stop making an attempt to rekindle things anymore.

And you’re right- Minho stops trying entirely. There are no more offers to walk you home, no philosophical debates over coffee or grocery store trips where you act as a married couple. You’re still covered in knit blankets when you fall asleep accidentally on the couch, but Minho doesn’t stick around watching his infomercials to wait up for you anymore. And he still saves you his takeout when he orders, but he leaves it neatly packaged for you in the fridge instead of bringing it up to you like he used to.

You’ve gone from a mutual infatuation for each other to complete strangers once again. The house feels lonely and cold like it once did, your only real human interaction occurring in the few minutes you have with Mrs. Lee at the start and end of the day.

Minho doesn’t talk to you at all, locking himself away in his room like he did when you first started caring for Joon. And when you see him in passing at late hours of the night, he looks indifferent, sagging his shoulders as he averts your gaze with a book in hand and disappears down the corridors again. At some point, you begin to see his girlfriend less- in fact, his stoic composure makes you wonder if something’s happened between them. But as time goes on, you start to realize this is less about his girlfriend- and more about you.

What a gift it is to feel- but also what a curse. To let something consume you so entirely you can barely breathe without it. It’s laboring to think of anything else, of anyone else besides Minho and what he means to you. And as you replay your last interaction in your head for the nth time this evening, you think back to the day you started here. You knew the fundamentals of caring for a baby, having trained just enough to land a job doing it. All you wanted was to be liked by Mrs. Lee, and by baby Joon- and by extension, Minho. This household quickly became someplace you felt like you actually belonged in. But your purpose here has completely diverted from its original path, having prioritized Minho’s complexities and his feelings toward you above what you were hired here to do. You’ve experienced a roller coaster of emotions trying to understand him, and just when you thought you’d cracked him, you realized his heart belongs to someone else. So with the comfortable knowledge in mind that perhaps the universe isn’t, in fact, conditioned for you to mean anything more to him than just a babysitter, you understand it’s time to stop forcing any other version of it.

There’s nothing particularly out of the ordinary two weeks into your avoidance of Minho.

You still haven’t talked, he still keeps his distance and you get paid to perform the job you’re here to do. But one afternoon before Minho’s even home from school, Joon refuses to eat. It starts with a tantrum he throws at breakfast time, which you consider typical as he knocks his cereal onto the floor and waves his hands around restlessly. You can only spoon feed him a couple spoons of yogurt before he’s put down for his afternoon nap. And when you wake him for his post-nap meal, he’s just as fussy. He seems to be bothered by something, crying loudly as you offer him different snacks and try your best to calm him down. But nothing seems to work, and when he begins refusing his bottles late into the afternoon, you start to panic.

Mrs. Lee isn’t home for a few hours, you’re unsure of when Minho gets home and you don’t have any way of getting to a hospital right now. The guilt and the fear eat away at you as Joon cries loudly, his face turning a bright shade of red as snot dribbles from his nose onto his shirt. He must be hungry, and clearly uncomfortable by something, only you’re entirely unsure what. His pacifier doesn’t calm him, nor does his favorite stuffed animal or his favorite television program. When his crying reaches the 10-minute mark, you feel hopeless, well prepared to drag him onto the bus to the nearest hospital yourself, fully convinced you’re going to lose your job. And as you begin to cry, too, the front door opens, Minho walking in with his backpack clutched casually in one hand and his car keys in the other. His girlfriend is with him this time, her head hanging as she uses her phone, completely oblivious to the atmosphere around her.

“Minho,” you call helplessly from the kitchen, and his head snaps instantly to look at you. Your eyes are nearly bloodshot from crying, your sleeves drenched in tears from wiping your eyes and your voice shaky as you speak. It’s the first time you’ve said his name in weeks, you realize, feeling your heart race as you call for him.

“What happened?” Minho asks when he turns the corner, throwing off his backpack and approaching a very fussy Joon.

“He won’t eat,” you reply through hiccups, wiping your tears with the sleeve of your sweater again. “I’ve tried everything. He won’t stop crying.”

Minho takes Joon in his arms, rocking him gently back and forth, to no avail; Joon starts crying even harder now, dribbling snot onto Minho’s sweatshirt and hitting his chest repeatedly.

“I’ll have to take him to the clinic,” Minho says in a rushed tone, fishing his car keys out of his pocket and making his way toward the door.

His girlfriend finally turns the corner into the kitchen, putting down her cellphone and huffing frustratedly.

“What’s going on?”

“Sorry,” Minho replies, shoving past her with Joon in his arms. “I have to go. We can work on our project another time.”

Your heart drops at the words- project. Project, as in a project for his university. With a classmate.

You want to cry more now, for being so stupidly angry with him over nothing, but you still have to help Minho take Joon to the clinic. Sujin doesn’t protest, quick to exit without so much as a goodbye as Minho scrambles to fetch Joon’s car seat.

“I’ll get him in the car seat,” you say, pulling your sneakers on as he balances Joon in his arms.

“You’re coming?”

“Of course I’m coming,” you scoff, already taking Joon from his arms and ushering him outside. “Go start the car.”

“Lee?” A nurse calls, holding a clipboard close to her chest as she scans the waiting room.

You and Minho both stand up, Minho balancing Joon in his arms as the nurse gestures you to the door.

“Please, follow me.”

Both of you walk side-by-side down the corridor as she double-checks papers on her clipboard, making a sharp right and leading you into a private room.

Minho sets Joon down on the examination table, holding his arms to steady him, and you stand beside him as you wait for the doctor.

“She’s just reviewing the results,” the nurse says, referring to the x-rays Joon took earlier. “She’ll be in shortly to discuss them.”

Minho nods silently as the nurse leaves the room, leaving the two of you alone once again. You say nothing, unsure of how to break the awkward silence as Minho wipes a string of drool from Joon’s mouth and avoids eye contact with you.

You feel awkward, embarrassed and so, so stupid, for having treated Minho like absolute scum because you assumed the worst of him. It breaks you to see him avert your gaze like this, treating you the same way he did when you first crossed paths. He has his guard completely up again, and you’re not sure he’s ever going to let it down around you. As you lose yourself in doubtful thoughts, the door opens, Joon’s doctor sauntering inside and wiping her hands with the strong scent of hand sanitizer.

“Hi there,” she says cheerfully, giving you both a warm smile. “Are we here for baby Joon today?”

“Yes,” you both say in unison, and she laughs a little.

“You two are very synced. They say it happens in the first year of marriage.”

“We’re not married,” Minho chimes in quickly, and you turn to look at him, feeling a pit in your stomach all over again.

“No?” She questions. “My apologies. Is mom here today?”

“I’m just his babysitter,” you say quietly. “This is his brother.”

“I see,” the doctor says, eyeing you both. “Well you may notice I’m fairly calm, and that’s because there’s no terrible news I have to share. Baby Joon is just suffering from a little mucus buildup. He’s probably feeling the impaction, and the discomfort has caused a loss of appetite.”

You feel a weight off your shoulders instantly, relieved that this isn’t a more serious matter. He’s going to be fine, you think to yourself. He’s going to be his normal self as soon as this is over.

“… Just be sure to use a syringe to drain the mucus a couple times per day, and make sure he gets plenty of sleep.”

As the doctor writes Joon a prescription for his saline syringe, you catch Minho’s gaze briefly, shooting him a relieved look. He gives you a small nod in response, as if to say he’s glad you came along. And he is, he just can’t say it out loud.

“I think he’s finally sleeping,” Minho says, patting Joon’s back gently as he stands up from his chair. The two of you have been sat in the library for nearly two hours since getting back home, in complete silence as you read your books and wait for Joon to fall asleep. You take breaks every now and then to drain Joon’s mucus, alternating roles between holding his face still and using the syringe on him. And when he’s finally comfortable again, he dozes back off to sleep, little snores escaping his lips.

Minho leaves the room to put Joon to bed, and while he’s gone, you take the opportunity to pack your stuff and prepare to leave for the night. You feel guilty, not having said much to Minho this evening, especially with the newfound knowledge that this mystery woman was just a partner for his project. But you’re not sure what to say, well aware that he’s probably already decided you hate him, and there’s not much else you can do to fix things.

“He’s down,” Minho says as he re-enters the library.

“That’s good,” you reply with a solemn smile, packing your laptop in your bag and slinging it over your shoulder.

“I should get going.”

“Do you… need me to walk you?” Minho asks a little shyly, and although the offer is tempting, you shake your head no.

“I’ll be fine. It’s really not as unsafe as you’d think.”

Minho just nods, understanding that you still don’t want to be close to him. And he gives you a little bow, before he exits the room and makes his way up the stairs to his own.

As you begin to leave, an object left on the chair across from you catches your eye.

It’s Minho’s book- the first edition copy of Love and Limerence you gifted him. You take the small book in your hands, scanning its contents briefly and examining the pages. He’s already annotated several of them, despite having read the book numerous times now, and you can’t help but smile at his scribbled notes circling all his favorite quotes and underlining them twice. You know it’s valuable to him, despite coming from somebody he probably despises right now, but you decide to take it up to him anyway, not wanting him to lose it.

When you’re outside his door, you give a small knock as it’s left ajar, and Minho hums in response.

You enter quietly, holding the book out to him and shooting him a small smile.

“You left this downstairs,” you say, and Minho reaches for it quickly, embarrassed you might’ve seen some of his annotations.

“Thanks,” he replies, setting it back on his bookshelf of romance novels.

He takes a seat on the edge of his bed, patting the spot next to him, and you join him at a comfortable distance as he keeps his gaze on the hardwood floor.

For a moment, no one says anything. And then he sighs deeply, before finally speaking.

“I’m sorry. If I made you uncomfortable.”

“You didn’t,” you’re quick to reply.

“I clearly did,” Minho retorts. “And I know I’m quiet, and I kind of shut myself off from the rest of the world. But I never meant for it to affect you.”

“It didn’t affect me,” you reiterate.

He scoffs lightly in response.

“Why won’t you just say it? You haven’t talked to me in weeks. You don’t even look at me. I clearly did something to push you away.”

You don’t reply immediately, pondering what to say. And ultimately, you let your emotions speak for themselves.

“I was jealous.”

“Of what?”

“Of the girl. The one who’s been here almost every night.”

“Sujin?”

“Look, I don’t know, okay? I don’t know who she is or what she is to you-”

“My project partner,” Minho interrupts. “One who hates my guts.”

“Project partner,” you continue. “It doesn’t matter who she is- I like you, Minho,” you finally emphasize, turning to meet his gaze. His lips are parted in shock, his eyebrows furrowed as he hears you speak.

“I’m fucking infatuated with you, and it drives me crazy. I can’t go on vacation without seeing you in the books at the stores, I can’t sleep at night without your stupid theories replaying in my head. And I jump to the worst possible conclusions when you’re even near another girl. I’m going crazy trying to be liked by you- trying to look at everything through the lens of your romance theories or your book quotes, or whatever. But it’s so scary to like someone this much.”

Minho says nothing for a minute, collecting his thoughts as you let go of the breath you’ve been holding. He’s not used to people liking him- let alone being this intrigued by him. And especially when it’s in the form of reciprocation, from the one person he’s infatuated with, too.

“Why is it scary?” Minho questions, facing you now, his eyes darting briefly over your lips and then back up to your worried gaze.

“Because I’m here for a job. I’m not supposed to be feeling all this. You’re not supposed to be part of this.”

“How do you know that?” Minho retorts, leaning in a little closer to you now.

“I just…”

“You’re allowed to feel, y/n. You’re allowed to want this.”

And before you can protest his words, his lips are on yours, kissing you passionately like he’s pacifying the arguments before they can come to fruition. Your heart beats erratically in your chest, your mind racing with a million thoughts about what you’re doing, and what this whole thing even implies, but you shut them out with the rest of your concerns, pressing your thighs together as he brings two hands to your face and cups your chin gently. His lips work against yours so beautifully, so effortlessly, like the two of you have done this several times before. And maybe you have, in all his alternate universe theories- on your honeymoon, on the run from the police- right here in the comfort of his grand bedroom, his hands snaking up to pull off your cardigan as you tug desperately at the fabric of his t-shirt. Minho says nothing between passionate kisses, afraid if he talks you might realize what’s happening and leave. But you won’t leave, especially not when you’ve been dreaming of this, too.

When your cardigan is off, Minho moves a little closer to you on the bed, letting one hand guide itself onto your waist and trace the gentle curve of your body there. He’s delicate with his movements, careful not to startle you with his touches, but he’s also admittedly thought about this for weeks. The thought of you confessing was never something that crossed his mind- he was so sure he’d driven you away after that night. Never in his wildest fantasies had Minho considered the possibility that you were this smitten with him, too. But he did have thoughts of your lips on his, thoughts of your hands intertwined with his and ungodly visions of you under him, right here in his bed. Visions of his mouth on your breasts after you’d accidentally exposed yourself to him in the kitchen and he was forced to give attention to the massive erection that grew in his pants. And after you’d gifted him his favorite book, attentive to the details he’d indulged you in which he never otherwise shared with people, visions of making love to you ran rampant in his mind, filling you up over and over again with remnants of him as a form of saying I’m infatuated with you, too.

Minho’s kisses become needier as your words replay in his head, darting his tongue out to dance against yours with the sounds of exchanging saliva present between your plump, eager lips. He pushes you back gently so that you’re now lying on his pillow, the angle so intimate, the view of his room from here like something you’re not supposed to see. The ceilings appear even larger when you’re flat against his bed, the curtains that drape over his bedpost seemingly miles high.

Minho’s kisses trail down to your neck now, eagerly peppering your flesh in wet kisses as your hands reach up to tangle in his hair, holding him closer to you and letting him graze his lips wherever he desires. You can’t help but feel guilty having him all over you like this when you remember how you’ve treated him these past couple months- criticizing his tendencies to be quiet, intruding on his space and pushing him away because of a girl you’d assumed to be his girlfriend. But you also know most of it has been because you want him to mean more to you- perhaps you’ve just been trying to change things so that in this version of the universe, he’s not just an enigma to you. You want all of this- his lips on yours, his body pressed into you and to give yourself completely to him.

“Just so we’re clear,” Minho says suddenly, pulling away from you to hold eye contact with you. “I’m crazy about you, too. I really like you.”

And you can’t help but smile back in response, pulling him in again to press his lips on yours. He smiles into the kiss, too, satisfied you’re both on the same page. And although your now eager movements imply something more is about to happen, you don’t have to verbalize anything, his fingers snaking up your shirt serving as answer enough.

“Is this okay?” Minho asks, grazing your flesh with his big hands as he toys with the hem of your shirt.

You nod in response, sitting up a little and completing the task of pulling it off over your head and discarding it beside you. You waste no time on your bra, either, reaching around to unclasp it and rid yourself of the fabric without him having to ask. His eyes widen again at the sight, having remembered every curve of your body since that incident in the kitchen. But now in front of him again, he feels his cock swell in his pants, desperate to act on the urge. In nimble movements, his hand cups the mound of your breast, kneading it gently and sighing at the sensation of your soft skin against his. His mouth finds yours again, indulging you in a slow, passionate kiss, and then he trails down until he meets his hand at the mound of your breast, pressing a chaste kiss to your flesh before finally latching his lips around your nipple.

He starts with gentle kisses while your nipple rests between his lips, a string of saliva dribbling down to coat your hardened bud. And then he takes it between his lips with more force, beginning a gentle sucking motion as he gives your other nipple attention with his free hand, circling the tip with his thumb in tender movements.

You sigh beneath him, the sensation sending a shiver up your core, your nipples hardening even more in his touch, now eager for him to give your soaking core some attention. But he takes his time stimulating you, moving to your other breast to take your nipple in his mouth and leave a trail of saliva. Your body shivers when the cool air grazes your wet nipples as he pulls away, and he meets your lips again to kiss you passionately.

While he kisses you, your hands now toy with the hem of his shirt too, signifying for him to take it off. And Minho reciprocates with a little nod, finally pulling his shirt over his head and revealing his bare chest to you. It’s a marvelous sight to see more of his honey-tanned skin, his toned muscles and his broad pectorals practically begging for you to touch them. And just above his stomach, a horizontal pale pink scar, one that he eyes momentarily and then gives you a shy shrug.

You run your fingers along the scar briefly, tracing it in its entirety and bringing your hand up to caress his face.

“I didn’t think I could be any more attracted to you,” you say to him sheepishly, tracing the scar again. “You look like the poetry you’re so obsessed with.”

Minho feels an involuntary smile pulling at his face as he leans in to kiss you again, this time intent on giving himself fully to you the way you deserve.

Your kisses both grow hungrier, needier, as your bodies tangle into each other, and Minho loops a finger into the hem of your panties, tugging them down so that he has access to your sopping cunt. As your hands tangle further into his soft brown hair, his finger traces down the length of your stomach, dipping into every curve and over every inch of flesh he only got a brief sight of. And when he finds your mound, you arch up into him, parting your legs slightly to give him access. Minho doesn’t waste another second, attaching the pads of his fingers to your clit and working you in circular motions as he kisses you. Little gasps escape your mouth as he does, breathing heavily into his kisses and grinding your core closer to him as he quickens his pace, smearing your arousal around your aching clit and circling two fingers around to massage you gently. His cock is now fully erect against his abdomen, prodding into your upper thigh as he trails his kisses down your neck again, but he’s patient, forgiving with his movements, eager to pleasure you first.

As his kisses graze your neck, you tug his boxers over his cock, pulling them down so you’re equal parts undressed. Minho winces a little at the sensation, a bead of precum already dripping down the head of his cock, and you feel yourself clench around nothing at just the sight of him hard for you.

When he takes note of your anticipation, he glances down at his own erection, locking his gaze with yours again as if to confirm again that this is okay. You nod in response, reaching your hands around to loop them behind his neck and pull him a little closer. And then your gaze falls to his cock again, waiting for him to make the next move.

The two of you say nothing as Minho’s hand finds the base of his cock, pumping himself gently before leaning in to kiss you. He lets himself hover closer over you, until his cock is kissing your entrance in the same gentle, wet movements as your lips. You lift your leg up slightly to grant him access, and then in gentle movements as your eyes remain shut, you feel him push his tip inside of you, stretching you out around his girth and causing you to gasp. He’s bigger than you anticipated, even the dripping arousal of your cunt having trouble taking him wholly. But he brings his fingers down to your clit again, massaging you slowly to ease the pain. And it works, your body relaxing around him as he pulls back a little and thrusts in again, this time pushing further until he’s completely bottomed out inside of you. You let out a fervent moan at the sensation, his cock pulsating inside of you as he holds it there, feeling every inch of you clench around him and take him so well now. And then with a gentle kiss to your lips, he begins to move, his hips pulling back slowly to thrust back inside of you.

You feel so full of him, having him exactly as you’d always imagined him- circling your thoughts, hovering over you and finally inside of you, his cock brushing against your cervix so delicately with every thrust. Your labored breaths become one as you pant into each other’s mouths with overwhelming pleasure. Minho steadies himself with one hand on the mattress beside you, quickening his pace a little as he feels his cock twitch inside of you in response to a particularly pornographic moan of yours.

“Fuck,” he breathes, shutting his eyes as he continues to slip in and out of your soaking cunt. “You’re so full of me, aren’t you?”

He brings his lips to your neck again, nibbling the flesh between his teeth and letting it bruise as you moan beneath him.

“I’ve thought about you everyday,” you respond, angling his lips to yours again as he fucks you. “I’ve thought about this so many times.”

“Yeah?” Minho says with a satisfied smile, working circles back onto your clit.

“Yes,” you breathe back, toying with his hair as your arms wrap around his neck. “I wanted you to fuck me like the characters in your romance novels.”

Minho feels his cock twitch again, wincing and slowing his pace so as not to finish just yet.

“I can’t help it,” you whimper underneath him. “I think about you all the time. I think about you fucking me all the time.”

Minho intertwines his hand with yours, pressing it down on your abdomen and letting yourself feel when his bulge fills you up at every thrust, the motion visible beneath your palms.

“Feel that, baby?” He asks between kisses to your drooly lips. “Feel how good I fuck you? Is this what you imagined?”

You gasp at the sensation once you feel it, the bulge of his cock protruding against your palm with every pump inside of you. You nod breathlessly, almost unable to reply to his words now.

“I imagined it, too,” he says, picking up his pace now. “You don’t know how badly I wanted to bend you over the couch and fuck you right there the moment I met you.”

He groans a little as you clench around him and moan in response.

“Minho,” you say breathlessly, not missing the way his cock twitches inside of you once again. “Will you finish inside of me?”

He pauses for a moment, scanning your expression for a sign of whether or not you’re being serious.

“Please,” you beg, as if reading his thoughts. “I’m on birth control. Just want to feel your seed inside of me.”

He shuts his eyes briefly as you wrap your legs around his waist and pull him in a little closer.

“Are you sure it’s okay?” Minho asks, locking his gaze on yours again. “I want to, but I want you to be sure about it.”

“I’m sure,” you say quickly, the last syllable hitching in the back of your throat as he hits a particularly sensitive spot. “Please, just wanna feel you fill me up.”

He thrusts harder into you now, the room teeming with the squelching noises of your pussy taking him so effortlessly.

“You like it when we play house like this, huh?” He says, wrapping a hand gently around your throat. “You like imagining me as your husband, don’t you? Fucking you like we’re married?”

And it doesn’t take you more than a second to think before you’re nodding desperately at his words. You do love it, this sense of belonging when you’re in the Lee household. But you also get aroused at this second life you lead alongside him, caring for the baby like it’s one of yours and being fucked by Minho when no one else is around to hear your lewd moans.

“Yes,” you reply, your response muffled by his grasp on your throat. “You make such a good dad.”

“We’d make such good parents,” he emphasizes, kissing you breathlessly. “What do you say I fuck a baby into you and we find out for real?”

You feel yourself contract around his girth at the words, not having considered it seriously, but turned on at the idea of carrying a child just for him.

“Is that what you want?” Minho asks, nearing his orgasm as he thrusts even faster into you now, panting into your mouth above you.

“Yes,” you reply with a whimper. “Want you to fill me up so bad.”

“Yeah?” He cuts you off, pressing your abdomen harder with his hand. “I’m gonna cum, baby. Want you to feel it.”

Your senses hone in on the feeling of your palm over his bulge, pulsating rhythmically as he nears his orgasm.

“I’m cumming, fuck, I’m gonna finish,” Minho says, shutting his eyes in pleasure as he moves at his fastest pace now, his grip around your throat holding you steady as you lose yourself underneath him. He’s never finished inside someone before, but he has no intention of pulling out now, the conversation of impregnating you sending him over the edge as he reaches the cusp of his release.

You contract around his breathlessly now, eager to take his load, never having taken someone’s either, but desperate for Minho to be your first.

And with a few more harsh thrusts, Minho’s cock twitches once inside of you, finally letting out a generous load of his cum inside of you, the gush of his release filling you up so fully, the warm sensation of his milky white release thrusting deep inside of your pussy as he fucks the rest into you.

He feels his head spin, his eyes shutting instinctively at the sensation as he lets go fully inside of you, no urgency to pull out or stave off his release like he usually has to. And it takes a while before he’s begun to soften again, the knowledge of giving you his cum almost rousing him again and lengthening the period of his release inside of you. Minho already knows he’s going to be addicted to finishing inside of you from here on out- and he doesn’t want it any other way.

The warm feeling is all it takes for you to finish in mere seconds, contracting around him as he fucks you through his orgasm, your release mixing with his and dribbling down the side of your thighs as he begins to slow down. Minho doesn’t pull out immediately, instead caressing your face to gauge your reaction as he softens inside of you.

“Was it okay?” Minho queries, tucking sweaty strands of hair behind your ears and loosening his grasp on your throat.

“It was more than okay,” you say breathlessly, tears pricking the corners of your eyes as he smiles down at you. “I feel so full of you.”

Minho kisses you sweetly, rubbing his thumb along your hand soothingly as he pulls out of you, a string of his cum connecting to you still and dribbling onto the sheets as he rolls over to lay on his side.

For a moment, the two of you say nothing, your chests rising and falling as you catch your breath and ponder the day’s events. It’s not what you expected was going to happen when you saw yourself up to his room again, but it is what you’d hoped would happen eventually. And the atmosphere feels much lighter around you now, completely void of the lingering sexual and emotional tension that’s plagued you for so long.

“Minho?” you say quietly.

“Yeah?”

“Philosophically speaking, how many versions of us do you think are lying next to each other like this, right now?”

Minho thinks over your words for a moment, and then he chuckles lightly.

“Well if the universe was conditioned right, I’d hope for an infinite amount. But considering how long it took us to get here in this version, I’d say just one.”

And he sits up, leaning in for another kiss as two fingers tuck his arousal further into you, holding his release inside of your still-sensitive body.

“Have some bacon, honey,” Mrs. Lee says to you as she scrambles to get her things together for the day. “I made a lot, so help yourself.”

“Thanks,” you reply, strapping Joon into his high chair and smoothing down your skirt.

Ever since that evening, you and Minho have been inseparable. The two of you wait until Mrs. Lee is gone for the morning, desperately grabbing at each other and giggling between kisses until Minho has to leave for his classes. And when he returns, it’s much of the same, the two of you helping put Joon down for his afternoon nap before escaping up to his bedroom and making love until Joon wakes again.

Minho is completely and utterly obsessed with you, the same way you are with him, but you both know this game of house you play can’t go on forever. Mostly because you feel the guilt eating away at you day by day, every waking minute you’re tending to your duties as a babysitter or conversing with Mrs. Lee. It’s hard to be in the same room as Minho when she’s around, the urge to just confess even more present when she attempts to facilitate conversation between the two of you and you’re forced to act like he’s still a mystery.

But you have him more figured out than you ever have before, memorizing the freckles on his body like the back of your hand, reciting his favorite quotes like prayers and replaying the melodic giggles that escape his lips. You don’t want to be apart from him, but the point still stands- it’s scary to like someone this much. He consumes you more than he ever has before, filling every waking second of your life with remnants of him. You love when he reads romantic philosophical theories to you, or when he cooks you and Joon dinner after a long day. But you feel guilty when you’re alone with Joon again, hoping he can’t somehow tell that you’re only thinking of his brother when you’re preparing his bottles or feeding him. You hope Mrs. Lee doesn’t notice when your hair is a little too tousled to have just been from a nap, or the time you had to cross your legs to keep Minho’s release inside of you when the two of you had finished just in time for her to make it home. It’s selfish, and it’s unfair. And with no sign of this fling stopping anytime soon, you don’t see any other option to be fit.

“I’m leaving,” Mrs. Lee finally says, grabbing her car keys off the kitchen table and pulling her heels on. “Make sure to get Joon his medicine!”

The two of you watch as she shuts the front door behind her, and then you wait until her car starts, holding your breath as she pulls out of the driveway and begins down the street in what feels like an agonizing amount of time.

The minute she’s gone, Minho turns to you again, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear as you lean back against the counter.

“Morning,” he says with a shy smile. He wastes no time leaning in for a romantic kiss, which you reciprocate, wrapping your arms around his neck and smiling into him.

When he pulls away, the two of you say nothing, holding each other in a comfortable embrace as he rubs little circles into the small of your back.

“I guess it’s just mom and dad home right now,” he says, pressing a chaste kiss to your neck. “I’ll ditch class right now if you want me to fill you up again.”

And his offer is tempting as he presses his erection into you, working more kisses down the nape of your neck and trailing his hands up your skirt.

“No,” you finally say, pushing him away and collecting your thoughts. “You need to get to class. I have a lot of stuff to do. I’m working, in case you forgot.”

“Okay, okay,” Minho says, holding his hands up in surrender. “I digress.”

He pulls back to caress your face with a visible smirk as your eyes graze his thighs, so beautifully sculpted under the fabric of his jeans. You’re not sure you’ve ever been so sinfully tempted by somebody before, like Eve to the apple, like a moth to a flame- he’s intoxicating, but you know you shouldn’t be indulging this while you’re here to fulfill your role as a babysitter.

“You should go,” you say to him, swallowing nervously as his hands trace the outline of your lips.

“Yeah,” Minho replies, a hint of disappointment present in his voice.

And without another word, he gathers his car keys off the table, sending you off with a little wave as he disappears for the day.

You may have Minho mostly figured out now- his fascination with romance and philosophy, his soft interior under the stoic exterior he presents everyone else with, his astounding levels of emotional intelligence and unwavering kindness for the people he loves. But now that things have become a little more complicated between the two of you, you fear all of this will come to an end as fortuitously as it all began.

The reality is, this isn’t one of Minho’s romance novels- you’re both real people, with emotions and convictions and reservations. And though you want this fleeting thing to last forever, you’re well aware that things don’t work that way, especially when you’re just a babysitter at the end of it all. Sure, Minho sees you as much more than that- but you were hired to be here in the Lee household, paid to fulfill your role here, and once this comes to an end, your relationship with Minho likely will, too.

… and thus, the decision to quit your job isn’t one you take lightly. It succeeds hours of thinking, weighing your options and planning out exactly what you’re going to tell Mrs. Lee when she asks why you’re leaving so suddenly. You want to do another internship, you decide on telling her, hoping she doesn’t poke enough holes to get the truth out of you- “I think far too much about your eldest son and it’s eating me alive.”

All day long, you try your best to shut Minho out of your thoughts, focusing on your online courses and caring for Joon like you used to. But it feels futile, this task of pretending things are the way they used to be. They’re not- you’re sneaking behind Mrs. Lee’s back and hooking up with her eldest son. When all’s said and done, you’ll be right back in your own home, with your parents desperate to send you elsewhere once again, and your own life to tend to. This double life you romanticize isn’t real, nor is it attainable anymore.

Your phone call with Mrs. Lee to announce your decision doesn’t set anything in stone yet, her words urging you to speak with her later this week when she has some free time. But you know once you do speak with her, you’ll only have a few evenings left with Minho until this is all over. And you don’t have the heart to tell him just yet, but if things go anything the way they did when you first brought it up to him, you know he’s going to be heartbroken.

When Minho arrives home that evening, he can already sense something is wrong. You’re sat in the garden, where you typically don’t go, your legs crossed neatly over one of the sunlounger chairs as you let your thoughts consume you. Mrs. Lee’s koi fish fountain stands nobly in front of you, a robust stream of water trickling from its lips and into the concrete bowl below. You’re mesmerized by it as you always are, the steady sound of water coupled with the birds chirping in the sunny greenery around you as peaceful as ever.

“Hey,” Minho says, sliding open the screen door and stepping outside to meet you.

“Hi,” you reply, holding a hand up over you to shield your eyes from the sun. You’d forgotten how divine he looked today, his white button up now folded up at the sleeves and exposing his veiny forearms to you.

“How was your day?” Minho asks, pressing a small kiss to your temple as he occupies the spot beside you and stares at the fountain.

“Okay,” you respond, though you’re lying through your teeth. “Joon went down about an hour ago.”

Minho nods, and then he furrows his brows together as he speaks again.

“Why are you out here?”

You shrug in response, keeping short with your words as he pushes you for answers. And you want to tell him it’s because you made the most painful decision to call Mrs. Lee and forfeit all of this, but you know it’ll only hurt more, so you divert from the truth.

“It was stuffy inside,” you voice back, shooting him a small smile.

Minho seems to relax beside you, his shoulders sagging a little as he takes notice of your calm demeanor. He doesn’t have reason to believe anything’s wrong, judging by the way you converse so casually.

“You want me to cook you something?” Minho asks, placing his palm up next to you, and you let your hand intertwine with his.

“Will you read to me?” You ask, eager to indulge in your favorite activity alongside him.

“I can read to you,” Minho echoes back, pressing a chaste kiss to the back of your hand. “Which book?”

You’re both in the cozy atmosphere of the library later that evening, Minho sat on his favorite velvet armchair as you occupy a spot in his lap with his arms wrapped around you. The book is positioned in front of him so you can both see, his fingers holding open the thin pages as the poetry leaves his lips, pausing in between lines to press kisses to the crook of your neck when he’s reminded of you in his favorite characters.

And you hold back tears in the moment, wanting so badly to tell Minho that you’ll be letting go of all of this, running back to the monotony of your old life, one where Minho doesn’t exist and you don’t have to balance the complicated feelings of liking someone to this degree. But you bite back your words, careful not to ruin the intimate moment you share while he loves you in an ignorant state of bliss.

“The pleasures of love are always in proportion to the fear,” Minho begins a new chapter, grazing your neck with his lips.

He trails a bit lower to graze your shoulder now, pressing a small trail of kisses as he pauses his reading. You giggle softly in response, feeling his fingers find the strap of your tank top to pull it down your shoulder so he can pepper kisses there, too.

“Minho,” you say softly, writhing in his embrace as he tickles every inch of your skin with his kisses, now shutting the book and setting it on the arm of the chair.

“Can’t help it,” Minho responds, shutting his eyes as he snakes his hands up the back of your tank top. “You look so beautiful right now.”

As you adjust in his lap, you can feel he’s now rock-hard in his jeans below you, his thighs flexing underneath you as he wraps two hands around your waist and runs them up and down your sides. You take the hint, turning around in his lap to face him, and let your arms wrap around his neck to steady yourself.

“What are you thinking about?” Minho asks, bringing his lips to yours as he feels his hardened cock graze against the fabric of his jeans, eager to pleasure you.

You want to express your fears, your doubts, to tell him the truth about what you spoke about on the phone with Mrs. Lee earlier today. But you can’t, not when he looks so tantalizing in front of you like this, his bulge perfectly outlined in his tight jeans and his veiny arms flexing below the fabric of his collared button-up. You’ve been roused for him since he left in the morning, his offer swirling your mind coupled with his appearance, like something out of a wet dream.

“You,” you voice back, whimpering pathetically into another kiss and rocking your hips gently over him so that he’s practically whimpering for you, too.

Neither of you have to say much, knowing already where the evening is headed, as you unzip his pants and palm his erection through the fabric of his boxers. Minho watches as you slide off his lap, dropping to your knees in front of him and tugging the fabric of his jeans. He complies with your urges, pulling them down to his knees and freeing his erection from his boxers, exhaling deeply as the cool breeze of the room grazes his leaking tip.

Without a second to waste, you take him in your mouth, letting your saliva coat his shaft as you kiss his tip tenderly and then guide him down your throat, the base of his cock just barely meeting your lips as you struggle to take him fully. Minho groans at the contact, bucking his hips off the chair to guide himself further into you, feeling his cock twitch when you gag a little at the contact. You stay like that for a good while, bobbing your head in rhythmic motions up and down his hardened length, your saliva allowing you to graze his shaft with ease.

Minho’s thighs contract desperately below him, trying his best to stave off the orgasm he’s been longing for since the moment he saw you this morning. His hands find your hair, pulling your locks into a makeshift ponytail and gasping as you take him a bit deeper now, pulling back again to pepper the tip of his wettened cock in drooly kisses.

“Fuck,” Minho breathes out, clutching the arm of the chair so desperately. “Baby, stop, I don’t want to finish yet,”

And you release him with a gentle pop, knowing exactly what it is he wants so badly. You never deny it, sitting back up again to position yourself over his cock you intertwine his hands with yours. He uses one hand to tug your panties to the side, and then in one swift motion, you guide his cock inside of you, sliding down the slick of his length and bottoming out with ease. You take him so well now, always able to adjust to his girth instantly as your cunt is always dripping in anticipation when he’s near.

Minho’s hand moves to push your tank top up, taking a nipple in his mouth and sucking harshly as you begin to bounce on him with gentle movements. The room fills with sounds of panting, sucking and desperate moans as his cock fills you fully with every thrust, brushing against your cervix as he moves to your other nipple and kneads your breast desperately.

“What was that quote again?” You ask in labored breaths as he comes back up to kiss your lips.

“The pleasures of love,” he begins, breathlessly working his lips against yours as you clench around his length. “Are always in proportion to the fear.”

Minho feels his cock twitch inside of you, always nearing his finish much faster when you make him recite all his favorite quotes and book excerpts to you.

Except this one speaks much louder to you, directly aligning with your present-day emotions, circling your mind relentlessly as he fills you. Maybe this is what his book speaks of- the pleasures of love, being filled so fully and lovingly by Minho, two pieces of one whole like you’re both made for this, to make love into the late hours of the night while he recites poetry to you.

And all of this in proportion to the fear- this constant fear that he’s just a fleeting entity, that you’re both naive to play house like this and pretend it’s anything more. The fear present while you’re sneaking behind Mrs. Lee’s back, letting him fuck you like he’s married to you and indulge you in all of his deepest secrets, as though you’re the only one allowed to know him this intimately.

The love and fear and indeed in proportion to one another- you love him as much as you’re afraid of loving him.

“I love you,” you say suddenly, bringing him in for another kiss before he can respond. But the way his kisses work against yours, hungry and passionate, there’s not a hint of reluctance in his response when he pulls away to speak again.

“I love you,” Minho breathes back, working his kisses against yours as his cock pulsates inside of you, desperate for release. “And I hope every version of the universe is conditioned for us to be right here.”

You smile into him, slowing your movements as you feel him contract inside of you, and then his thighs flex as he finally finishes inside of you, shooting hot white ropes of his cum into your still-clenching cunt, his release already beginning to dribble back down his length as he feels you slow down over him.

You bring a hand between the two of you, gathering his cum on the pads of your fingers to circle your clit in gentle movements, stimulating yourself to your release, too, as you contract desperately around him and breathe labored kisses back into his mouth. Your juices mix with his as you catch your breath, keeping him inside of you as your chest rises and falls with gentle movements. But the two of you say nothing, pressing your lips together to indulge in more passionate kisses for the few minutes you have left before Mrs. Lee makes it home for the evening.

The garden is particularly beautiful the next afternoon, teeming with the sounds of birds chirping and trees swaying in the gentle autumn breeze. Mrs. Lee let you know she’d be home a little earlier to have a chat about your decision to leave, and when Joon is put down for his afternoon nap, you receive the call that she’s in the garden waiting for you. You enter hesitantly, worried Minho might catch you and question what you’re doing out here. But he’s not home from school yet, you remind yourself, glancing around the tall grass and neat rows of potted plants for Mrs. Lee.

“Y/n!” A voice calls from one of the patio chairs. “Come, sit!”

Mrs. Lee sits with her back facing you, a large white sun hat atop her neatly styled hair and complementing her matching white jumpsuit. Her gaze remains locked on the koi fountain you’re always transfixed by, too.

“Hi Mrs. Lee,” you say, giving her a small bow as you take the seat next to her. “It’s a pleasure to see you again.”

She nods with a smile. “So good to see you when we have a little more time. I’m sorry I’m always such a mess in the mornings.”

You shake your head quickly, brushing off her words. “Not at all! It’s always nice to greet the family before I start my day.”

She just smiles in response, turning to nod at you, and then she turns back to the fountain.

“I was a little surprised when you called the other day. I hope things are going okay.”

“They are,” you interrupt quickly. “They absolutely are. Joon is so pleasant, and the job is great. I really love it here.”

“I hope everything at home is okay,” she moves on to say, and you quickly reassure her.

“Yes, everything is fine! Everyone is doing great.”

“I understand,” Mrs. Lee says, eyeing the ground before turning to face you now. “You’ve done so much for us, I’d be lying if I said I’m not going to miss having you around here in the mornings.”

You shoot her a sympathetic look, feeling a pit form in your stomach, too. You feel the same, probably tenfold, at the idea of leaving behind the household you’ve called home for so many days.

“I’m going to miss it here, too.”

“And I know Joon is going to be heartbroken,” Mrs. Lee says with a chuckle.

You chuckle too, giving her an understanding nod.

She pauses briefly, furrowing her brows together, before continuing her speech.

“You’re such a bright young woman, and I know you’re destined to do amazing things. If there’s a way I can help in this transition, please don’t hesitate to let me know, okay?”

You nod at her words, and watch as she smooths down her top before standing up. She seems to wait for a moment, as if hoping for you to say something, and when you don’t, she begins to make her way back inside.

“Well, I’ll let you go for the evening. Thank you again, for everything. And you have my phone number if-”

“Mrs. Lee?” You call out suddenly, catching her before she can get much further. She turns around at the worry present in your voice, her face shifting into that of concern.

Without having to voice anything else, Mrs. Lee sits down again, waiting for you to continue. But you can’t, your heart beating wildly in your chest at the thought of even bringing up the topic of Minho. I’m in love with your son, you want to say to her. I’m so in love with Minho and I hope you understand I don’t have a choice but to leave this all behind me.

“You know,” Mrs. Lee interrupts your thoughts, breaking the silence that fills the air. “This koi fountain was my first gift from Mr. Lee.”

You nod at her, remembering when she introduced it to you on your first day here.

“We weren’t married yet. It was his first restoration project, and my dad hated him. So he had a lot of trouble getting it over to me.”

You chuckle lightly, amused at her story which seems to calm you down a little.

“Luckily his parents adored me,” she continues. “And they offered to house it in their backyard until we married. For the 15 years we dated, my koi fish lived in their garden. And when we did marry, they rented a big truck to help haul it over. It was such a project! But it’s my favorite part of the garden.”

You shoot her a saccharine smile, well endeared at the way she speaks of Mr. Lee. You can tell she’s in love with him, even this many years later.

“Sometimes I wondered why they would do something so nice for me. But as I grew closer to them, I learned not to question what was meant for me. They loved me, as did Mr. Lee. And I wasn’t going to run from any of that, no matter what I felt I deserved.”

Your head snaps in her direction at her last words, realizing how they apply to you. But she doesn’t know about Minho- at least not to your knowledge, or Minho’s. She gives you a sheepish smile as you furrow your brows, and then she takes your hand in hers, giving it a little squeeze.

“I hope you won't run from what you deserve, either.”

You nod a little bit at her words, finally understanding the weight of them, and then you look back at her with a confused expression.

“Mrs. Lee, are you talking about…”

“Minho?” She finally says, with a warm smile. She takes your other hand in hers, too, tilting her face to yours so that she’s making proper eye contact as she speaks.

“I had wondered why he was so happy these days. Minho’s always been a bit of an outcast. But I haven’t seen this spark in him since he started his obsession with all those romance novels and philosophy studies of his.”

You chuckle lightly, a weight off your shoulders as she finally speaks of what circles your mind so heavily.

“But how did you…”

“I knew it when I saw it,” she says. “I knew it, because he had the same look in his eyes as when I met his father.”

You feel your heart swell in your chest, your shoulders relaxing as she continues to speak.

“He speaks of you like poetry,” she tells you. “And for that alone, I’m thankful for you. Now what you choose to do is your decision- but I hope you know you will always have a home here with us. Not just as a babysitter, but as family.”

When Mrs. Lee finishes her speech, she gives your hands a little squeeze, smiling at you and back at the koi fish fountain. It feels much more sentimental to you even now, the beautiful waterfall that cascades serving as a reminder of its permanent restoration rooted in the infatuation Mr. Lee had for Mrs. Lee. And watching it stand so beautifully like it did all those years ago, you’re reminded that love can be a lasting thing, no matter the circumstances. The universe can condition itself to make things last, affirming the philosophical notions Minho’s always told you. And that perhaps you do deserve this, a sense of belonging here in the Lee household, right here alongside Mrs. Lee and Minho, and even baby Joon.

As you watch the fountain together, the sound of the sliding door makes itself known behind you, and you turn around to find Minho entering the garden, baby Joon sitting comfortably in his arms as he makes his way over.

“Hi,” Minho says, coming around to give Mrs. Lee a kiss on her cheek. “What’s going on here?”

He looks visibly worried, his eyes darting back and forth between you and Mrs. Lee, as if to silently ask you what she’s told you.

But Mrs. Lee just smiles at him, as she gets up from where she’s sitting and smooths down her jumpsuit.

“We were just having a girl chat. I’ll leave you two alone.”

And she disappears behind the screen door again, shooting you a little wink as she does, her anecdote circling your mind, still.

“What happened?” Minho asks, settling down next to you and balancing baby Joon on his knee. Joon fists at the fabric of his shirt, babbling incoherently as you smile down at him.

“Nothing,” you say, leaning in to press a quick kiss to his lips. You refrain from saying anything about leaving, not wanting to interrupt the tender moment you share with Minho and Joon in the sunlight of the garden.

“You have a really cool mom,” you settle on saying, smiling at Minho as he chuckles softly in response.

The afternoon sun beams through the glass windows of the library as you lie comfortably in Minho’s lap, his book positioned in front of you as he presses a small kiss to the back of your hand before turning the page.

Outside, the birds chirp songs of early spring, the steady stream of Mrs. Lee’s koi fountain audible as you peer down at the garden.

Mr. and Mrs. Lee sit in the tall grass, fiddling with a box of tools as Mr. Lee repairs a new project for Mrs. Lee. This one’s a much larger fountain, one he’d told you would take several months, perhaps even years. But Mrs. Lee sits beside him, relishing in stories of his restoration process and laughing with him as he works. You can’t help but smile at the sight, her stories about him playing in your mind whenever you catch a glimpse of them together.

“Do you think they could be us in another universe?” You ask Minho, turning to face him as he peers out the window, too.

“I hope so,” he says with a smile.

You settle closer to him in his lap, pressing a small kiss to his hand as he continues reading.

“And think not that you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.”

At his words, you hear baby Joon cry out, having woken from his afternoon nap.

“I’ll get him,” Minho says, shutting the book and setting it aside to go tend to the baby.

And as you peer back out the window, the sound of Mr. and Mrs. Lee’s laughter filling your ears, baby Joon’s voice calling to you, Minho’s philosophy book perched on the chair beside you and the sun beams shining their light through the windows, you know that this is belonging, this is love.

#stray kids #skz smut #Lee Minho #Lee know #stray kids hard hours #Lee know smut #lee know scenarios #skz x reader #skz hard hours #stray kids x you #skz #fanfic #request #requests open #Spotify

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moonjxsung · 4 months

Text

Begged & Borrowed

Pairing: Lee Minho x fem reader

W/c: 30.2k

Warnings: infidelity, drinking, smoking, use of pet names, unprotected sex, breast/nipple play, dry humping, clitoral stimulation

Synopsis: A turn of events causes you and your longtime best friend Minho to confront your true feelings for each other- except you’re already getting married to somebody else.

[this work was based off a request from “🌷” anon - thank you for requesting!]

18+. Mdni!

•

For as long as Minho has remembered, he’s been in a constant state of grieving. But no one’s passed, nor is there any reason to believe something should happen. Nonetheless, the feeling remains, a cruel reminder of the phenomenon when it hits him suddenly, eating away at his thoughts and boring into his flesh.

Like a seed planted deep in his body, one that suddenly sprouted, and won’t stop growing, and growing. And in his mind, this grieving takes its form in viridian hues of ivy, thin stringy stems that wrap around his bones and constrict him to a life lived within the cage of his own body. Rubbery leaves of green with venules that mirror his own veins and seem to mock him as they replace what’s left of him. And Minho can do nothing except coexist with this heavy sense of grieving, let the ivy strangle him in its unsuspecting embrace and rob him of his last breaths. He’s still in there, trapped somewhere, breathing in labored breaths and stiff at the limbs. But he can’t breathe, and he fears one day this grieving is going to kill him.

Minho exhales deeply, balancing a small cardboard box which houses a white cylindrical cake in his hands, his eyes darting nervously over the crowd inside. There seem to be 20, maybe 30 people, already acquainted with the space, chatting amongst themselves with glasses of champagne in hand. He’s tried your cell phone twice, to no avail- of course he knows you’re probably making your rounds, chatting with guests and double checking the hors d’oeuvres are to your liking. But he tries one more time just in case, bringing the phone up to his ear and letting it ring once, twice, three times- voicemail.

There’s no way around this but to go inside and socialize for the next hour, Minho’s personal idea of hell on earth. He grips the box a little firmer with one hand, using the other to slip his cell phone back into his pocket and make sure he can access it easily, just in case he needs to look busy. And with one more deep sigh, he begins the journey inside, mentally preparing to pretend as though he cares about any of this.

The venue interior is spacious, and admittedly a breathtaking view at this proximity, much to Minho’s stubborn dismay. Round white tables line the wooden floors, wrapped in velvety cream tablecloths and glowing in the dim lightning of tea candles. Similar cream-colored lanterns line the ceilings in neat rows, parallel to the strings of bohemian bulb lights that serve more as decoration than to actually brighten the place. And by the marble wall fountain at the back of the open space, there’s you, all dressed up and chatting enthusiastically with a group of women. Minho pauses for a moment, not yet proceeding, as he takes in the sight of your elegant appearance. Your figure is hugged delicately by a slim-fitting dress, a pair of strappy heels complementing the loose curls and simple makeup you sport. And he sighs again, feeling as though this is all going to be in vain the second he approaches you.

Yet he doesn’t even have to- you spot him from across the room first, whispering something in another woman’s ear before making your way toward him, an enchanted smile on your face and such purpose in your step as you near him. Minho’s heart quickens in his chest the way it always does when he’s around you, though his demeanor seems to relax fully once you’re in front of him, your arms extending for a hug as he shoots you a saccharine smile and pulls you into his embrace.

“You made it!” You exclaim enthusiastically, your arms wrapping around the broad shoulders he flaunts under his white collared button-up. He smells familiar, a comforting mix between fabric softener and his musky cologne, and it brings you right back to your days spent alongside him in college, catching late-night movies together and hitting up all your favorite fast food joints.

“I wouldn’t have missed it for anything,” Minho replies sweetly. He chuckles a little as he speaks, lost in the striking glow of your eyes at this proximity, your long eyelashes fluttering as you smile in response and nod.

“Thank god you’re here,” you voice, glancing around the room inconspicuously. “I think Jung’s friends have had one too many shots. And I asked for pink flowers on the centerpieces- do these look pink to you?”

You gesture to the bouquets of very magenta floral arrangements, shaking your head as Minho laughs in response.

“Hey, remember this is just to celebrate everything being finalized. You can get nit-picky when the wedding rolls around- for now, let’s just enjoy the magenta flowers.”

You smile up at him, always endeared at the way Minho finds the good in everything. He has a special way of taking your fears or reservations and making them seem so insignificant in contrast to the world around you. And he’s been that way for as long as you can remember, quick to fix things and stay by your side through the hardships whenever they crept up on you.

Like the time your car got impounded and he walked nearly two hours with you to get it back because neither of you could afford a taxi. Or the time your holiday office party was all but sleep-inducing, and he didn’t hesitate to drop what he was doing to take you out for burgers, instead.

And of course, being by your side throughout this very burdening wedding process. Minho’s the first person who got the news of the engagement when it happened, nearly shattering the dish he washed during a session of old cartoon reruns and fast food while you were out at dinner with Jung. And it was the last thing he’d expected, too, remembering how the week prior was spent lending a kindly ear to you as you ranted about Jung’s stubbornness and his poor temperament.

“Married?” He’d spoken into the phone, like the proposition of getting an engagement ring implied literally anything else.

And when you saw him again an entire week later, the marquis diamond hugged by delicate prongs and a sterling silver band around your fourth finger confirmed the words, as if your excitement over the phone hadn’t done so already. At first Minho was angry, declining invitations to hang out and forcing himself to stay asleep so as not to feel the sheer pain and regret that came with the news. What does she even see in him? He’d asked himself a dozen times a minute, mapping out the factors you complained about to him and weighing them against the likelihood that you’d actually follow through with this wedding.

He’s messy. He doesn’t like spending money on fancy dinners, so sometimes we’ll only do sides. My parents think he’s a little arrogant and when he’s with his friends, it’s like I don’t exist.

All signs point to negative. There’s no way you’d actually follow through with marrying Jung- at least not if it’s up to you. Maybe you had stars in your eyes, couldn’t say no to the sparkly ring and had thought back to the first date when he first got down on one knee. That has to be why you said yes.

The prospect of marrying him contractually is a headache when Minho thinks about it- and that’s not even inclusive of the idea that comes with spending the rest of your life cooped up in a house with him, with children and in-laws. It would mean years of him talking back to you, undermining you and rubbing his superiority complex in your face. Minho isn’t sure he could stick around for a lifetime of that.

At least he wasn’t sure before- and now, with just two months out till the wedding, Minho is panicking. It feels like some race against time to knock an ounce of sense into you, but the stars in your eyes are still there when he catches you glancing at your ring, or moved by Jung’s actions that scream the bare minimum.

“Did you see the champagne glasses? They’re iridescent! Jung got them just for tonight.”

Maybe that’s what you see in him. His noble trait of picking iridescent champagne glasses over clear ones.

“Cool,” Minho responds, giving you a small nod.

“What’s in the box?” You ask, gesturing to the small white box in Minho’s hands still.

“Oh, just a little something,” Minho replies a little softly, watching as you slowly lift the thin cardboard lid and peer inside. And the smile that grows on your face makes everything worth it again.

“From our favorite bakery? Minho! That place is so expensive, you shouldn’t have!”

“It’s a special evening,” Minho replies with a smile, watching as you admire the intricate icing display for a moment. White fondant ribbons and candy pearls line the frosted surface which enreathes decadent layers of chocolate- all your favorites. As Minho begins to close the box, he’s rudely interrupted by a finger prodding itself into the dessert, swiping across the frosting and moving the carefully placed cake toppers into complete disarray.

“Is this chocolate?” A voice asks from behind Minho, coming forward to sprawl an arm over your shoulders and lick the frosting off his finger. “Damn, that’s good!”

And Minho can practically feel every ounce of hope in his body dissipate as he watches you giggle enthusiastically.

“Hi, Jung,” Minho says flatly, observing your destroyed cake briefly before shutting the box again.

“What’s up, man? Thanks for the cake. Hey, wedding’s in two months- I hope you have your tux ready!”

Minho responds with a thin-lipped smile, not saying anything as Jung laughs loud enough to fill the awkward silence amongst the three of you.

“What do you say we go cut some real cake?” Jung asks, turning to face you as his grip around your shoulders tightens.

You smile back at him, turning to Minho and cocking your head toward the table by the wall fountain.

“You wanna join? We got a variety of pastries, too. There’s those little cream puffs you like, and macarons from the French bakery.”

Minho extends his arms, passing the box of cake to you and giving you both a small bow.

“I actually just stopped by to gift you the cake. I have a work thing really early tomorrow.”

“You’re leaving?” You question, a small pout on your face as Jung scans the room around you, desperate to ditch the two of you, but also stubborn about maintaining his dominance in front of Minho.

“We’ll catch up soon,” Minho replies, trying his best to convey a smile that will make it seem like nothing’s bothersome.

“Okay, okay,” you respond, separating from Jung’s hold on you and pulling Minho in for another hug.

“Thanks for the cake, anyway. I’m still glad you stopped by.”

“Of course,” Minho says, averting his gaze from Jung. “And congrats on finally getting all the wedding plans finalized. That’s a really big deal.”

“She’ll be hitched in two months!” Jung chimes in loudly from behind you. “And then we’ll be on an island celebrating married life!”

Minho just nods at him, shooting him the same thin-lipped smile and bowing to both of you.

“Catch you later,” he says, finally pivoting to exit the way he entered. And he can still hear Jung’s obnoxious laughter from halfway across the room.

Fridays were always your designated days with Minho. In college, they meant movie nights and greasy takeout food. Post-graduation, they involved bars and gossiping about your entry level positions and your bosses. And after Jung came into the picture, they quickly became every other Friday, which soon turned to Sunday brunch on a monthly basis, which then transitioned to catching up over the phone or in brief passing. Jung made sure you were always busy doing something with him, his arm slung possessively around your shoulders and speaking far too loudly about your relationship for the whole world to hear.

Minho began to ditch the Friday group dates when Jung started inquiring about his own relationship status, getting drunk off one-too-many jägermeisters and slurring questions and demands about when he’d finally bring a girl to the function. And Minho never had the heart to tell you why he stopped showing- he simply conjured intricate excuses for every instance you invited him out.

I have a headache. I have an early day tomorrow. The cats are lonely these days.

Of course, perhaps Jung could see right through him into the green leaves of ivy that enwreathed his bones and swallowed him whole with this grieving. Grieving for you, grieving for himself, grieving for this life he knew was bound to come to a close the minute Jung made his move. Which Jung did, practically setting the relationship in stone so that Minho would now be subject to a lifetime of his offensive slurred speeches and unsettling presence. And although the grieving grew heavier after the engagement, it’s always been there, perhaps even longer than Jung’s even been in the picture.

“Jung said no male strippers at the bachelorette party, which is a bummer if you ask me. But we are having an open bar, so I’ll be too drunk to care about naked men anyway.”

Minho chuckles softly, bringing the straw in his iced coffee up to his lips and taking a sip from the corner of his mouth.

“But he’s having strippers at his bachelor party, isn’t he?”

You shrug casually, brushing off the question as you take a sip of your coffee, too.

“I don’t really care, either way. I mean we’ll be getting married regardless, so he can look at whoever he wants. I just need him to show up in a tux on the day of, and stand at the end of the aisle crying when I come to meet him.”

Minho doesn’t reply, a string of questions circling his mind, which he chooses not to ask in order to maintain the peaceful silence that now falls over you both. It’s one of the only days this month you two have been able to get some time alone, although it did require Minho taking off work early and you lying to Jung about your whereabouts. You find yourselves at the coffee shop you’ve been meeting at since your college days, an iced americano in Minho’s grasp and a latte in yours.

As Minho takes in his surroundings, everything feels vastly different than it used to- the distance between you two feels much greater, like there are miles separating the beverages you consume at this proximity to each other. The baristas don’t shoot you curious looks like they used to when they were certain you two were an item. And the shiny ring on your finger makes an appearance every sip you take, glistening under the beams of sun that dance through the windows and fall over your enthusiastic figure.

“What are you up to this weekend?” You ask finally, meeting his shy gaze as he taps his fingers on the wooden surface of the table.

Minho shrugs, toying with the lobe of his ear as he thinks of a random commitment to voice back to you.

“Oh, you know,” he stutters. “Moving stuff.”

And he’s completely unsure, himself, of what the words imply as they escape his lips.

“Moving stuff? To where? Where are you moving?”

“I’m not moving,” he emphasizes. “Just… moving stuff. Things. I want to rearrange some picture frames. And maybe reorganize my bookshelf.”

You sigh in response, a small smile tugging at your lips as Minho does his best to maintain the bogus narrative.

“Minho, you never leave the house anymore. Why don’t you go out with Jung or something? He’s doing a golf thing with some of-”

“No, thank you,” he interrupts quickly. “I’m not a golfer.”

And you sigh again, cocking your head at him.

“Okay, mister ‘moving stuff.’ Will you at least call me when you’re done moving your stuff and your things?”

“I’ll call you,” Minho reaffirms.

“I mean it. I’m gonna call you when I get home from the party and you better not be asleep on the couch again.”

“I promise to answer,” he echoes.

You smile at him again, and Minho mirrors the action with a small smile of his own, his skewed teeth exposing from behind his plump lips as he grins sheepishly.

“Moving stuff,” you repeat, mocking his excuse.

“Moving stuff and things,” he emphasizes, chuckling lightly across from you.

Bachelorette parties are supposed to be one of two things: freeing, and cathartic. Luckily for you, yours checks both boxes, the two-day retreat to a luxury hotel in the city providing ample time to relax, and the shots you down at the open bar in your venue fulfilling the cathartic part of it. Your girlfriends shower you in presents, ranging from expensive dining sets and clothes, to humorous sex toys for you and Jung to try on your honeymoon. Even the bartenders join in on your two nights of dancing, parading your event with handmade signs and getting everyone in the bar to sing to you. And for the first time since the stress-inducing year of planning has begun, you feel excited, ready for your new life as a bride alongside Jung.

Husband and wife have a nice ring to it, you think to yourself, as you kick off your shoes and lie back on the thick white duvet of the hotel bed. And though you’re still a little tipsy, you keep your promise, selecting Minho’s contact in your phone and giving him a ring. The phone rings once, twice and then three times, before you conclude he’s definitely fallen asleep on the couch again, probably while moving around his stuff and his things. But you’re proven wrong on the fourth ring, a gentle click echoing in your ears as you hear him press the phone to his ear and speak in a tired voice.

“Hello?”

“You’re asleep on the couch, aren’t you?”

“…no,” he responds, after a short pause.

“You’re so predictable,” you chuckle back at him, shaking your head as you sigh into the phone.

“How was the bachelorette party?” He inquires, sitting up on the couch he definitely wasn’t asleep on, to speak a little clearer into the receiver.

“It was amazing,” you reply with a dreamy sigh. “We did karaoke, and danced and even the bartenders were wishing me good luck. It was like something from college.”

“I’m glad,” Minho responds, nervously picking at the hem of his ratty old t-shirt.

“I’m a little drunk,” you say with a gentle laugh. “But I couldn’t help but wish you were there. The girls are great, of course, but I feel like bars were our thing.”

Minho blinks nervously a few times, pondering your words and keeping his gaze locked on the array of neatly-placed picture frames on the wall across him.

“Yeah,” he settles on replying, his breath hitching in the back of his throat.

“Do you miss me?” You query, twirling a strand of hair around your finger. And Minho can’t comprehend what’s got you acting like this, flirting with him in the phone line while Jung isn’t around.

“I do,” he responds after a brief pause.

“I’m serious, Minho. As your best friend, I’d hope that you miss me sometimes.”

There it is- the clarification is enough for him to exhale the deep breath he’s been holding in all this time.

“Yeah,” he says again. “I miss you, as a friend. And I’m glad the night was enjoyable.”

“You hate bars,” you say to him. “But you used to let me drag you out to them. I miss you.”

And he nods on the other end, repressing the real emotions that eat away at him like, you might see them over the phone if he feels too deeply.

“I miss you, too. Get some sleep, okay? We’ll talk in the morning.”

“Yeah, yeah,” you say sarcastically. “Goodnight. Thanks for answering.”

“Sure thing,” Minho replies before ending the call. And the room is eerily quiet now that he’s awake, the clock on the living room wall ticking with the passing seconds, as the ivy in his chest constricts a little tighter now.

Jung’s bachelor party is nothing short of insufferable. It’s loud, it’s rowdy, and it’s neither relaxing nor cathartic. Unless you define the two as getting lap dances in a smoke-filled limousine driving down the freeway a million miles a minute.

Minho sits quietly on one side, refusing every advance from the female strippers as they flaunt their beautifully-sculpted breasts in his face and dance to the loud rap music. He pretends to use his phone, having no service in this part of town, and yet still resorting to switching frantically between the compass feature and the weather app. And then he tips each stripper a generous amount, apologizing to them profusely as he gets off at the first stop and orders a cab. Where exactly the limousine is taking them, he doesn’t even care to know. Jung questions no part of it, not even having wanted to invite Minho in the first place. And while Minho waits for his taxi, he calls you, frantically wishing he could remind you Jung’s possibly the worst person you could have chosen to marry.

“Hi Minho,” you speak into the phone, shuffling about on your end as you tend to some household work. “I thought you didn’t get reception wherever you were going?”

“I found a way,” he responds, lying through his teeth.

You narrow your eyes, pausing your work to listen in to the phone call a little more closely.

“Minho, did you… leave?” You question, taking note of the way there��s not a sound in the background of the call- not Jung’s booming laughter, nor any music of any kind.

“No,” he says quickly, and you let out a deep sigh.

“Now you’re lying,” you remark.

“I’m not-”

“You’re talking in short responses, and I can’t see you but I know you’re doing that blinking thing. Why would you leave?”

Unfortunately for Minho, you know him like the back of your hand, always quick to clock when he’s lying to you through his nervous habits. The same habits you’ve studied since your days together in college, and ones he’s never been able to stop doing no matter how hard he tries. Minho lets out a deep sigh and runs a hand through his hair.

“Look, it’s just not my scene, okay? I’m still going to the wedding, it’s not like ditching a bachelor party is going to ruin your marriage.”

You shake your head and pinch the bridge of your nose in annoyance.

“What am I going to do with you? Why are you so opposed to just bonding with him?”

“I’m not!” Minho exclaims. “He wanted to go swimming. I can’t swim.”

Another lie.

“Look,” you begin. Would you just come over if you’re not going? We can talk about it here.”

Minho nods eagerly, the idea of spending time by your side sounding much more appealing than a weekend with Jung.

“I’m just waiting on a taxi,” he says. “I’ll be there soon.”

And when he hangs up, you stare briefly at the contact phone of you two, running your fingertips over the dimly lit screen. It’s an older photo, of you guys in college out at a bar, Minho smiling enthusiastically and giving you a piggy-back ride. And although it’s still Minho, it doesn’t feel anything like the version of him you know now.

“I don’t want this to set the precedent for the rest of our relationship.”

“Don’t want what to set a precedent?” Minho questions back.

“This! You running away from Jung every chance you get so that we’re only able to bond when he’s not around! You’re my best friend, Min. Why can’t you guys just make it work so that I don’t have to divide my time between the two of you like this?”

“You had no problem learning to divide it when we were in college,” Minho says frustratedly. “Now that you’re engaged it’s like I’m engaged to him, too. I don’t like the guy, okay? Whatever we make of that as friends isn’t in my hands, but it also doesn’t mean I’m gonna jump at the chance to go golfing with him every weekend.”

You’re quiet for a moment, his frustrated speech circling your mind as he remains sprawled out on your couch. He’s right, to some degree- you know very well that the two of them never got along well. And try as you might, they’re just incompatible in every way possible. Jung’s loud, he’s stubborn, he’ll never say no to a social outing and he’ll only make an effort to get along with someone for a finite amount of time before he’s disregarding their existence, much like he does Minho’s. And Minho is quiet, soft-spoken, only social when it comes to you and takes his stance on a person just minutes after meeting them. They’ve already reached the stubborn conclusion that they despise each other, and at this point in your life, there’s little you can do to change it.

“I just want to know things are okay between us,” you remark.

“Things are okay between us.”

“We haven’t had a proper hangout in months, Minho. I get married in a few weeks and then I’m afraid we just won’t see each other.”

Minho seems to understand the seriousness in your tone, sitting up from the couch to finally meet your gaze. You look disheartened, an expression Minho is used to seeing when you try to set him up with a date or when he can’t make it out to an event. But this time it seems like it has more weight to it, the way you sag your shoulders as you slouch over one of the barstools in the kitchen, completely terrified at the prospect of losing your best friend.

“I’ll tell you what,” Minho breaks the silence. “How about we plan something, just us? It’ll be like old times, and we don’t have to worry about Jung or your friends or anyone. Just for a weekend.”

You meet his gaze, too, promptly glancing at the ceiling as you think over his proposal.

“I don’t know, Jung probably wouldn’t like it-”

“This is exactly what I mean!” Minho interjects. “Everything you do is based on what Jung likes or doesn’t like. We used to go out together all the time- if you only want to hang out when he’s around then yeah, things might be a little different from here on out.”

And the words pierce through you like a dagger, yet again filling your mind with all the regrets that will come with shutting him out for the purposes of pleasing Jung. Minho is right- he’s been your best friend for years. Jung might be your future spouse, but that doesn’t mean your relationship with him has to be any more important than the lifelong commitment you’ve made to your best friend, too.

“Where would we go?” You ask reluctantly.

Minho shrugs casually, lying back down on the couch with his hands behind his head.

“Anything,” he responds. “Your pick.”

And you think over his offer again, mentally mapping out your schedule at work and what you guys might be able to do on a quick weekend together.

“Camping,” you say suddenly, straightening your posture.

“You hate camping,” Minho retorts, chuckling lightly.

“Yeah, but you love camping. I’m just doing this to spend time with you, Min. I already spent my weekend in the city. Let’s do something you like and we can have an old friend trip like we used to.”

Minho can’t help the grin that tugs at his lips, endeared by the way you always let him drag you to his favorite places just like you used to drag him. And he knows you’re a city girl through and through- you’ve always been very vocally opposed to accompanying him on his camping excursions. But maybe going together, you’ll have some change of heart if it means you won’t have to listen to Jung share all of his unwarranted opinions.

“Let’s do it,” Minho says confidently. “You’re gonna love it.”

“I’m only doing this for you,” you reply with a smile. “I still maintain that I’m going to hate it.”

A yoga retreat.

Jung is made to believe you’re at a yoga retreat, three hours out from your shared apartment, with a close girlfriend you haven’t seen in months.

And maybe it’s because he genuinely believes you, or he simply doesn’t care, but he doesn’t press you for any information about the event, sending you off with a chaste kiss and turning his attention back to the sports he watches on television. He doesn’t even inquire about why you fail to bring your yoga mat, leaving it folded neatly in the closet of your bedroom alongside all your workout clothes.

You do pack warm clothes, blankets and even a matching set of flashlights for when it gets pitch dark like you know the mountains do at night. And as you make your way to Minho’s house with your backpack slung over your shoulders, you’re actually a little excited, the idea of getting some fresh air sounding like a well-deserved treat after the week you’ve had in the city.

“Well aren’t you all ready to go camping,” you say to Minho in an amused tone, admiring the outfit he’s put together for the occasion. He sports a simple white t-shirt and a loose-fitting pair of jeans, coupled with a black cap he wears backwards over his brown hair. He looks a lot simpler than usual- in fact, you’re not sure you’ve ever seen Minho in a cap before today.

“You look nice,” you voice to Minho, as he loads his duffel bag in the trunk of the car.

“Me?” He questions, furrowing his brows in genuine confusion. “I’m just dressed for comfort.”

“Yes, you. That cap looks good on you. God forbid I compliment my best friend.”

He chuckles lightly, helping you load your backpack into his car and closing the trunk when he’s finished.

“Ready?” Minho asks, turning to you with a small smile.

“Ready,” you echo, climbing into the passenger seat beside him.

The drive to the campsite is just over an hour long, taking Minho’s vehicle through narrow paths of dirt roads surrounded by trees. The treacherous drive doesn’t seem to faze him at all, as he keeps just one hand on the wheel, while the other rests casually on the car console. You can tell he’s done this drive a number of times before, judging by the way he needs no form of navigation and doesn’t stop to read the directional signs at any point.

“Do we need to pitch a tent when we get there?” You ask, and Minho laughs in response.

“That’s how I can tell you’ve never come here before.”

“What?” You reply with a chuckle of your own. “It’s a totally valid question.”

“Yeah, maybe if we were on Survivor. There’s tents all over the campsite. And picnic tables, and bathrooms and I think there’s a gift shop somewhere.”

You nod at his response, a little more intrigued now that you know it’s not going to be as hands-on as you thought. And when he pulls into the parking lot, he’s right- there are cabins that span the perimeter of the parking lot, presumably bathrooms and information centers about the place.

Minho puts the car into park as he helps you gather your bags, and then you both enter the cabin closest to you, being greeted by an older woman who sits at an information booth.

“Welcome!” She exclaims in a cheerful tone. “Are you folks staying overnight?”

“Yes,” Minho answers, hoisting his duffel bag further up his shoulder. “We’ll be here for two nights.”

“Wonderful!” she replies, gathering a thin stack of pamphlets. She uncaps a red pen, circling a little graphic that indicates a tent, and then slides it over to Minho along the counter.

“You two will occupy this location here- it’s just a few minutes up the hill there. The bathroom is attached to the unit, and there are a few clean towels in the drawers there.”

She slides him two more pamphlets, gesturing to their titles and keeping her gaze on the infographics.

“There’s a guide on plants to avoid, and some wildlife you might run into. Any questions?”

Minho shakes his head, stuffing the pamphlet into his pocket and giving her a small nod.

“No, thank you,” he says, looking over at you.

And the woman shoots you a smile now, gesturing to your hand.

“That is a beautiful ring,” she states, clasping a hand over her heart emotionally.

“Thank you,” you reply with a smile. “I’m getting married.”

She laughs lightly, shooting Minho a thumbs up.

“Enjoy it while you can!”

You’re quick to shake your head at her, taking a step away from Minho.

“Oh god, no, he’s not my fiancé. He’s just a friend.”

And Minho takes a step away, too, giving her a nod.

“We’re just longtime friends,” he echoes your words.

“My apologies,” the woman is quick to say. “Enjoy your stay regardless.”

“It never ends,” you say to Minho as you exit. “I can’t believe people still think we’re a couple when we go out.”

“It’s just a common equation,” Minho responds. “Two people. Engagement ring. Camping trip.”

“I know,” you emphasize. “It’s just so weird being so close to my own marriage and still having to tell people we’re not a couple.”

Minho swallows nervously, not entertaining the discussion any further as he takes your aversion to the idea of it as answer enough.

“It’s just up here,” Minho says, gesturing to the narrow dirt path that leads up to your tent.

The tent is a long, rectangular space, the beige tarp even accompanied by clear vinyl windows that zip up for added privacy. The inside houses a small birch wood table pushed against the side, two white folding chairs, and a single bed, just larger than a twin-sized one.

“One bed?” You say as you scan the room, dropping your bags and looking nervously back at Minho.

“All the units have one bed,” he explains casually. “I’ll take the floor.”

“You’re not taking the floor, Minho. It’s freezing.”

“I’ve done it before,” he says, unzipping his bag and pulling out a smaller pouch. “I’ll be fine.”

“But it’s so awkward to have you on the floor while I get a whole bed to myself.”

He disregards your concerns, tossing the pouch to you, which you catch in two hands and examine.

“Bait,” he says with a small smile.

“Bait?” You echo. “You mean like…”

“Fishing,” he says confidently. “We’re catching our dinner tonight.”

It’s a fair assumption to say you hadn’t taken Minho’s liking to camping very seriously. Sure, you knew he was partial to the great outdoors and to catching his own dinners. Of course he knows how to pitch a tent and gut a fish. But seeing him do it in action, string a spinnerbait onto his fishing rod and cast his line, watching meticulously as the bobber pulls underwater and he checks if he’s caught a bass yet, you’re admittedly pretty impressed. He looks completely in his element like this, uttering remarks about his “monofilament fishing line” that you don’t understand in the slightest, but you listen to regardless. For a brief moment, you can’t help but feel bad, seeing how much this interests him, when all you’ve ever done in the span of your friendship is drag him to clubs and get takeout together. Maybe you should’ve taken this whole thing more seriously. Maybe you should have accompanied Minho on one of his offers for a fishing trip when you still had the chance to do it without being under Jung’s watchful eye.

“We may need a smaller hook,” Minho says, as he adjusts his rod and stares out at the lake. The atmosphere is lazy and restful, the gentle lull of the lake’s deep blue water sloshing against the rocks that line the shore and swaying with the breeze. There’s a distant buzz of cicadas at this hour, and the swallows circle the vast green trees overhead that rustle in syncopation with the water. You and Minho remain seated on the flat rocks that line the shore, a cooler of ice and a small pouch of bait between the two of you.

Minho’s gaze remains set on the lake, attentively watching the bobber and praying for a bass to latch onto it so that he can instruct you on the de-gutting and cleaning process. But there seems to be no sign of fish anywhere, the only movement being the little ripples that vibrate with the sporadic activity of water bugs.

“When was the first time you went fishing?” You ask Minho suddenly, catching his gaze as he turns to you.

“First time?” He echoes. “I don’t know, maybe age seven? My dad taught me.”

You nod in response, picturing a little Minho alongside his dad, learning the ropes of monofilament fishing lines and all that jazz. You can’t help but smile at the thought of it, knowing Minho was probably so quiet, yet full of curiosity, the same way he is now.

“I wish I would’ve come,” you say finally, letting out a small sigh as you speak. “I wish I came with you on one of these trips.”

Minho shakes his head and waves you off. “Solo camping is one of my favorite things in the world. I didn’t need it to be ruined by all your city girl antics.”

“Hey!” You exclaim with a small laugh, hitting him lightly, and Minho hits you back.

For a moment, the two of you say nothing, admiring the way the sunlight glares overhead and sets the water aglow with glints of light that make it almost hard to look at. Minho takes notice of the more casual look you sport, too, void of any makeup and your hair tied back loosely. Similarly, the little imperfections that mark his skin remind you of the Minho you met in college, back when you were both riddled with zits and drank cans of soda for breakfast. And now across from you, acne scars and a handsome face he’s grown into so well, you can’t help but feel your heart swell at the fact that he’s still here, this many years later, regardless of the roadblocks your relationship has taken you through. It’s a miraculous thing to have someone stick by your side knowing you’re getting wed to a person he despises. And you refuse to part ways with him, too, despite the amount of outings he declines in the name of nothing important. What a fascinating prospect, to be reminded that your most unconditional form of love comes in the form of a best friend more than even your fiancé on most days.

You open your mouth to say something, being promptly interrupted by the reel of the fishing line being pulled back, the rhythmic buzzing of the handle startling you both as it’s pulled in circular motions to indicate a catch.

“Oh my god, what do we do?” You exclaim to Minho, a sense of urgency present in your voice as you await his instruction.

“I’ll teach you,” Minho says, as he rises from his spot and gestures to the fishing rod. “Grab the handle, like- yeah, just like that.”

And you do as you’re told, approaching the rod to steady the handle in your grasp. He guides you through the careful motions, steadying your hands a comfortable distance away from the reel seat, pulling back the handle with slow, yet purposeful movements and raising the fishing line away from the gentle current of the water.

“There’s a lot of resistance,” you comment, as you pull even harder.

“Really?” Minho remarks, his hands on his hips as he looks out upon the water. “I wonder if it’s going to be a big one. Keep pulling.”

And you do, heaving the rod desperately away from the water to pull in your catch. There’s heavy resistance at first, and then a generous amount of give to the force, as the line finally glides across the water and begins to pull up toward you.

“Get ready,” Minho says excitedly. “It’s probably going to be a little skittish, just hold tightly and don’t let go.”

As he watches you pull, he takes note of the way the line struggles to move past a barrier in the water, sending ripples down the shore as you continue to pull, to no avail.

“I need help,” you voice frantically. “Minho, take the rod-”

“Just relax,” Minho echoes, coming around behind you and placing two hands over yours. He stands close behind you as he helps steady the rod, gripping tightly and helping you reel it in.

The two of you watch with bated breath as the line finally begins to move again, erratic ripples of water vibrating in the otherwise still lake as you reel in the catch.

“Here it comes!” Minho exclaims, as he continues to reel over your hands with his, his veins protruding with every slight motion as his slender fingers work around yours.

And then the fishing line is promptly pulled out of the water, swinging in front of your view and slowing its swaying motions as you take a gander.

It’s a large, juicy, vibrant hunk of moss.

No fish in sight, no catch of the day, unless for a bottom feeder. Minho says nothing for a moment, placing his hands on his hips again as he takes in the sight of the forest green mass. And then you break the silence with laughter, doubling over and clutching your stomach as you laugh at the ridiculous view.

“What’s so funny?” Minho inquires with a breathy chuckle, transitioning into his own fit of giggles.

“It’s fucking moss,” you exclaim, gesturing to the fishing rod and laughing again. “We’ve been here for hours and we haven’t caught anything besides a fucking byrophyte.”

Minho laughs, too, setting the rod down to clutch his own stomach.

“It’s not funny,” he says between laughter. “We don’t have dinner tonight.”

“Yeah we do,” you say breathlessly. “We have moss.”

And the two of you almost collapse on the gravel, holding your stomachs as you laugh endlessly at the ridiculousness of the situation. The fishing rod remains propped up against the rocks, the slab of moss dangling and dripping murky water back onto the gravel.

When your laughter dies down, Minho sprawls out onto one of the big rocks, the palms of his feet flat against the warm stone as he meets your gaze again. You occupy the spot beside him, your knees bent too, keeping your gaze locked on his as you smile.

“I missed this,” you say after a moment of silence. “I missed hanging out with you.”

Minho responds in a breathy chuckle, running his hands through his hair and rolling his eyes in a joking manner.

“You should’ve come camping with me ages ago,” he says. “We could’ve been eating moss for dinner instead of fast food.”

You chuckle too, and the sunlight beams over your listless bodies sprawled out on the rocks, glints of light hitting Minho’s golden-brown hair and his sparkling eyes. He looks so angelic in this atmosphere, so at peace with the nature around him and in tune with his emotions. For the first time in a long while, there’s nothing present between you and Minho that hinders the relationship you have to each other. He’s just as important to you in this moment as you are to him. And not even the knowledge that you’ve lied to your fiancé to be here with him can come between that.

Lucky for you, Minho always comes prepared. Of course he’s dealt with the situation of catching nothing while fishing and needing a plan to fall back on for dinner. So it’s no surprise to you that his backpack contains cups of instant ramen and bags of chips.

“Shrimp or chicken?” Minho asks, as water boils on his portable kettle.

“Surprise me,” you shoot back, getting comfortable in one of the two camping chairs across the bed. You feel a wave of tiredness wash over your body instantly, but you also feel fulfilled, having bonded with Minho more in the last few hours than any of your double dates with Jung and one of Minho’s picks from a dating app.

Minho shuts off the kettle, tearing open packets of vegetables and mixing them with your noodles as he pours hot water in both cups.

“Careful, it’s hot,” Minho remarks, handing you a cup and sliding a pair of chopsticks across the table to you.

“Today was fun,” you say to him, as you blow on a generous serving of noodles and guide them into your mouth with the wooden chopsticks.

“You’re not half bad at fishing,” Minho states. “I think it’s just emptier this season. But your technique’s good.”

“Really?” You query. “I feel like you did most of the work.”

Minho shakes his head, slurping a portion of his noodles before speaking.

“Maybe if you ditched your lame golf nights with Jung and came camping with me more, you could get some practice.”

“Ha ha,” you muse sarcastically. “His golf nights aren’t lame, they’re actually pretty fun. You’d know if you came out to one.”

“Please,” Minho retorts, gathering more noodles with his chopsticks. “Artificial grass and polo shirts aren’t really my thing. Of course they’d be Jung’s, though.”

“What does that mean?”

“Means even his favorite sport is as fake as he is.”

“Minho!”

“What?” He says in a breathy chuckle. “You asked what I meant.”

You shake your head, stirring broth around in your cup with your chopsticks. You normally don't entertain Minho when he insults Jung like this, knowing he’s just going to get mad and list everything he despises about him. But tonight, being so far away from Jung, it somehow feels permissible. It’s not like Jung is going to materialize out of thin air and find out about his little remarks. You don’t get cell reception out here, and it’s possibly one of your last few intimate moments with Minho to just let loose and joke with him. So you don't say anything, allowing him free reign as he cracks jokes about Jung at his expense. And you don’t feel bad about it, either, knowing Jung wouldn’t hesitate to do the same back at Minho.

The tent falls quiet for a moment as both of you finish your meals, the only noises present between the two of you being slurping the remainder of your noodles and setting the cups aside. Minho runs his hands through his hair and spreads his legs out in front of him as he slouches back in his camper chair.

“I can’t believe you’re getting fucking married,” he says with a breathy chuckle. “That’s still so weird to me.”

“Imagine how I feel,” you emphasize. “The word ‘wife’ still kinda grosses me out.”

“Well you have about a month to get used to it,” Minho replies. And then he gets quiet, averting his gaze from yours as he blinks. “Or a whole lifetime, I guess.”

You stay quiet, too, pulling up your legs to cross them in your chair and nodding reluctantly.

“Yeah. ‘lifetime’ kinda sounds like a scary word, too.”

Minho purses his lips, and then he turns to meet your gaze again, a solemn smile on his face.

“It doesn’t have to be,” he voices. “It can also imply a lifetime of happiness. And of love. Permanence isn’t a bad thing.”

You smile at him, comforted by the optimism he brings to the atmosphere, despite his dislike for Jung, and especially the prospect of you getting married to him. He doesn’t change- he’s still the Minho you know very well, the one who takes your problems and makes them seem so small, so unimportant, until you can’t, in good conscience, worry about them anymore.

“You’re right,” you say back at him. “I’ll remember that when I say my vows.”

You think over his words momentarily, and then you meet his gaze with a knowing smile.

“Do you remember when we had to write an essay about where we’d want to travel if we won the lottery? In our literary analysis course?”

Minho’s eyes roll to the ceiling as he thinks for a moment, and then he nods.

“Yeah. You wrote about Europe or something.”

“I did,” you recall. “And you wrote about that one historical town. What was it called again?”

“Shirakawa,” Minho responds. “Small mountain village in Japan where it snows a ton and there are little farmhouses everywhere.”

You chuckle lightly, remembering the countless images Minho had shown you when he was producing his paper on the subject. You can still picture the little brown houses and the vibrant green hills in the summertime. And the winter photos looked like something out of a Christmas movie, fresh snow blanketing the village and painting the town with bright hues of white.

You think over his essay for a moment, remembering just how many times you’d peer edited each other’s papers, and Minho wound up getting the best grade in the class for how poetically he spoke of Shirakawa. He talked about it for several months after the assignment, too, always voicing his desire to visit one day and see all the farmhouses for himself.

“I wish we still had time to go,” you say finally. “I always pictured we’d go one day.”

Minho purses his lips in a thin line, your statement echoing in his ears and the words stinging. It’s moments like these he’s especially regretful you’re getting married to Jung- all the stupid, likely intangible plans you made together and promised you’d fulfill sometime down the line. And now with Jung’s obnoxious presence indicating that of permanence, Minho knows there’s zero possibility you’ll be able to fulfill any of the plans you made together.

“You have a whole honeymoon planned on a tropical island,” Minho says somberly. “That’s far better than little old Shirakawa.”

You say nothing in reply, nodding at his words and thinking back to the plans you and Jung have already booked for your honeymoon.

Honeymoon. Even that word sounds foreign.

“Maybe we’ll plan for when I get back,” you tell Minho. “Little camping excursion in the farmhouses. We can get shitfaced and pet all the little goats.”

He laughs lightly, giving you a smile.

“Sure,” Minho affirms. “We can do that.”

And then his gaze darts to his backpack which sits on the floor, his eyes widening as he sits up.

“Speaking of shitfaced,” Minho says. “I think I brought boxed wine.”

“Boxed wine?” You repeat with a chuckle. “Jesus, we really might as well be back in college.”

He rises from the camper chair to make his way over to his backpack, unzipping the larger pouch and pulling out two small black cartons of wine, giving them a small shake before scanning the room as though he’s looking for something else.

“What?” You query, waiting for him to say something.

Minho says nothing, standing up again and taking long strides to where his fishing rod is, grasping it in one hand and fiddling with the hook.

“What are you doing?” You ask, watching as Minho’s expression turns serious again. His slender fingers toy with the small hook, the two cartons of wine balanced in his other hand.

You watch as he unfolds one tab on the box of wine, and then brings down the fishing hook to pierce it through the thin cardboard and string it through securely. When he’s finished, he gives it a little tug, and then raises the box of wine as he lifts the fishing rod once more, reeling the handle in the counter direction to move it out toward you.

“What the hell are you doing?” You ask again, chuckling softly as you watch Minho struggle to balance the carton of wine.

He reels the carton out further, and then slows as he drops it into your lap, moving the rod around in erratic motions and pretending to stabilize the line.

“Get it!” Minho exclaims. “It’s getting away, you have to get it!”

You play along, grasping the carton of wine in your two hands and pretending to steady its slippery grip as it flaps around helplessly.

“It’s slippery!” You exclaim back, holding it up with two hands and angling it toward Minho.

Minho gasps, and then sets his rod down to applaud you generously.

“Congratulations,” he says in a proud voice. “Your first catch. You caught your own dinner.”

And the dark night around you seems to be set aglow as laughter fills the entirety of the tent.

Two hours later, it’s half past midnight, empty cartons of wine on the table between you as you talk through your starkly different lives.

Minho shares tales of work you’d missed out on, dating app horror stories and recounts days from college when you’d go to nightclubs together and use fake IDs. You listen attentively for the first time in a long time, no sense of urgency present, nor the desire to set him up with somebody else. It’s you who wants to be here alongside him, rekindling your friendship and reliving your glory days. And Minho feels the same way, a gentle buzz swirling his mind from the cherry merlot and your sweet laugh in response to his tales.

“They so thought we were lying when we turned 21,” you say through laughter. “In hindsight, it’s pretty lucky we didn’t get thrown in jail for a night.”

“Yeah, only because you flirted with the bouncer,” Minho says. “I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t throw you in jail after offering you a drink.”

You laugh lightly, remembering the bizarre encounter, and then you slouch back in your chair as you shut your eyes.

“We should get to sleep,” you say to Minho. “It’s late.”

“Yeah,” he responds. “I’ll get my sleeping bag on the floor.”

“Don’t be such a fucking drag,” you protest.

“What?”

“Just sleep on the bed with me. It’s big enough and there’s less of a chance that you’ll wake up with a broken back. I’m not listening to you complain about your fucked-up joints on tomorrow’s drive home.”

Minho laughs lightly, and then he gestures to the bed.

“If you snore, I’m throwing you to the bears,” he says plainly.

“Yeah, well you kick me, I’m dumping you in the lake.”

Minho brushes his teeth over the small steel sink in the corner of the room, swapping out to fix the bed sheets while you brush your teeth, too. When you’re finished, you meet him at the foot of the bed, pulling your corner of the blanket down and climbing in beside him. The ceiling of the tent is barely visible in this level of darkness, just an indistinguishable outline of fabric visible as you cross your hands over your chest and exhale deeply. Minho does the same, and though he’s right beside you, he feels miles away, his exhale sounding distant as he focuses on the ceiling of the tent, too.

“It’s really dark,” you comment.

“Yeah,” he says back. “That’s the outdoors for you.”

He thinks for a brief moment, and then he breaks the silence that washes over the two of you.

“Are you excited for the honeymoon?” He asks quietly.

There’s no answer for several moments, the only sound coming from the gentle sway of the trees just beyond your tent.

And you are excited, but you’re more nervous, uncertain and disappointed knowing that everything will be so different upon your return. It’s like exchanging an old life for a new one- one that could be far worse, for all you know.

“I’m nervous,” you say candidly.

“Why?”

“Because marriage is a big deal. Sometimes I don’t know if I’m even doing the right thing.”

It’s Minho’s turn to remain quiet now, his hands folded over his chest as he ponders your words.

“Are you happy?”

There’s no response from you. Not now, not after a minute and not even after several minutes have passed. And you are happy, but you’re still much of the same- nervous, uncertain and disappointed that this new life implies change.

“Jung hates me,” Minho says suddenly.

“He doesn’t hate you-”

“He hates me,” Minho reaffirms a little louder. “The way he looks at me, or interrupts us whenever we’re talking. I’m sorry that I’m so distant from you when he’s around. The guy hates me.”

You stay quiet, knowing he’s right, but not wanting to fuel the fire that burns between the two of them.

“He probably thought we had something going on,” Minho says. “He’d kill me if he knew I was in the same bed with you.”

You scoff lightly, dismissing Minho’s claims with a wave of your hand.

“Please,” you emphasize. “He hasn’t even touched me in a month.”

And you regret the words the second they leave your lips, bringing two hands up to cover your mouth as Minho props himself up to look at you.

“What? Why?”

“Nothing,” you say quickly. “Forget I said anything.”

“No, I genuinely want to know,” Minho reiterates, keeping his gaze locked on yours. “You’re getting married and you haven’t had sex with your fiancé in a month? Who does that?”

“He told me it was a punishment,” you say in exasperation. “We had a fight, and he told me he wouldn’t touch me if I didn’t admit to being wrong.”

“What?” Minho says, turning audibly irate. “Are you serious? What kind of cruel and unusual punishment is that?”

“Look, I don’t know, okay? Let’s just not talk about it-”

“There go your excuses,” Minho says. “Your future husband won’t touch you, and you’re still defending him. Jesus Christ, it’s worse than I thought it was.”

“Would you stop?” You say to him, sitting up as he slings his elbows around his knees and shakes his head.

“Stop what? Stop being concerned for my best friend who’s clearly suffering at the hands of her own fiancé? Not gonna happen.”

“I’m not suffering,” you relay to him.

“Sure,” Minho says sarcastically. “So you never wanted to have sex in the whole month he’s kept this punishment going.”

You say nothing, swallowing nervously as you keep your gaze locked on Minho’s. He’s at a painfully close proximity to you right now, one strand of hair falling loosely in his face as his eyebrows furrow together in anger. His plain black t-shirt hugs his broad shoulders as he sits up, his basketball shorts riding up to expose a generous amount of his toned thighs. And his lips remain parted, waiting for you to say something, which you don’t. You simply stare at him blankly, your eyes darting over his gaze, down to his lips and then back up to his eyes.

Minho’s expression turns serious, too, unable to look away from your conflicted expression as you watch him.

“Not… really…” you manage to say in short words.

“Maybe not…” you continue, leaning into him a little as his arms loosen around his knees.

He somehow looks so tantalizing right now, in a way you’ve never seen him before. Sure, you’re aware Minho is good looking, and he always has been. And maybe your fleeting crush back when you first met him was short-lived, quickly moving on to date somebody else you met at a party. Maybe you were a little jealous the time his former girlfriend remarked how good he was in bed, or that she got to touch him when he wore that suit you loved so much at graduation. Maybe you even touched yourself once or twice to the thought of him, conjuring some stupid fantasy in your mind for the sole purpose of getting off to it. But nothing was ever going to come to fruition, not when he’s been your friend for years, you have Jung and you’re about to get married.

…At least not with any intention besides being fucked by him the way Jung has neglected of you for a month now.

“Maybe not until now,” you finally breathe out, your heart beating erratically in your chest as you await an answer from him.

Minho’s gaze flickers down to your lips, and then back to your eyes, furrowing his eyebrows as he makes sense of your words.

“Are you drunk right now?” He asks simply.

“No,” you’re quick to respond, shaking your head to affirm the answer.

“Good,”’Minho says. “Me neither.”

And the two of you meet in the middle, his lips crashing against yours roughly as you kiss him for the first time, hands flying to tug at his t-shirt as he brings to hands around the small of your back.

He tastes like wine, transferring the robust flavor of cherry merlot back onto your lips as you kiss him, his plump lips working perfectly against yours as you pull him closer. You want so badly to position yourself differently, to adjust your body’s awkward spot on the bed so that you can be a bit closer to him, so that you can cup his face and pepper it in breathless kisses. But you fear that the minute you pull away, Minho’s going to somehow realize that it’s you he’s kissing, his best friend of so many years, one who’s already engaged.

It’s Minho who pulls away briefly first, getting a little closer to you, while you scoot further back and lie flat on your spot on the bed.

“This is just to prove a point,” Minho says breathlessly, as he hovers over you now and steadies himself over your body with one strong arm. “It’s not cheating,” he emphasizes, and you nod eagerly at the words, suddenly aware that it’s not even the cheating aspect you were worried about. It was solely the possibility of ruining your friendship with Minho, who’s always been so vocal about his distaste for disloyalty.

“It’s just to prove a point,” you repeat, tangling your hands in his hair and pulling him back down to kiss you. “Nobody has to know.”

Minho grins against your lips, pressing repeated, chaste kisses to your already swollen lips and trailing down to paint a line of kisses down the column of your neck. Your heart beats in ways you’ve never felt before, a rapid arrhythmia brought on by the sheer terror of being found out, by the knowledge that this is the one person who could single handedly ruin your engagement to Jung. And yet you couldn’t care less in this moment, as his teeth take your flesh between them and suck bruises down your neck, a generous purple color painting the goosebumps that rise upon your skin.

Are either of you in any place to return with hickeys painting your skin like you spend the weekend at a frat house? Not in the slightest. And yet you can’t help but feel this is what you missed in college all that time, the same actions Minho repeated with the few girlfriends he ran through. Fucking them sweetly in his dorm bed, roping scarves around their necks when he’d send them off and his ears turning a bright shade of red when you’d point them out in your 7am college lectures.

Was there ever a hint of jealousy present between the two of you? Maybe, you think to yourself, as a string of spit connects Minho’s lips to your bruises, peppering them in light kisses. You could never help but wonder what it was like, what those girls had experienced each time they disappeared from his dorm in the early hours of the morning. And Minho, being the gentleman he was, was never one to kiss and tell. The sex was intimate, private, the details living and dying with him only, even if the relationship went awry or fizzled out suddenly.

“We probably shouldn’t go any further,” Minho interrupts, pulling away from you to maintain eye contact. His eyes are hooded with lust, his lips pink and swollen from kissing you so passionately. And his eyebrows arch up in a state of concern, mostly worried you’re going to protest him taking it any further than this. But it’s all you’ve occupied your mind with now, wanting so badly to know what little tricks Minho wears up his sleeve, if he’s just as intrigued with the idea as you are, if he even wants to have sex with you.

“It’s not like we’re dating or anything,” you say to Minho, desperately searching for the words to indicate how badly you want this. “It’s just… some drunken hookup. It’s probably nothing Jung didn’t do at his party last week.”

“But we’re not-” Minho begins, promptly silencing himself. He begins to tell you that he’s not drunk, and you aren’t either- but he’s already caught on to your little plan.

“Yeah,” Minho then says. “I’m a little tipsy.”

“Me too,” you say with a soft chuckle. “Too much wine.”

“Yeah,” he says, leaning into kiss you again. “And I get really horny when I’m drunk.”

“Me too,” you say between kisses. “It’s not like we can just leave each other hanging. Unless you want me to rub one out beside you, and that would be more awkward.”

“Yeah,” he replies. “Might as well… help each other out, right?”

“Right,” you affirm, pulling down your panties as Minho separates to pull off his shirt.

It’s nothing you haven’t seen before, already having witnessed him in this level of undress at every pool party and when you’d come over to his dorm unannounced. But it feels different at this proximity, his tanned skin hovering over yours and brushing against your flesh with every eager kiss.

Minho begins to ask you if he can touch you, but you’re faster than he is, taking his hand in yours and guiding it to your aching clit, letting him circle two fingers around your bundle of nerves as he pulls back to look you in the eyes.

“Jesus,” Minho remarks. “You are wet when you’re drunk.”

And your breath hitches in the back of your throat as he rubs you gently, a smirk growing on his face as you let out little whimpers. It’s been so long since somebody’s touched you like this, Jung hardly even giving attention to the foreplay on most days. His nimble fingers rub at a steady pace, his eyes boring into yours as he makes you writhe in pleasure beneath him. Minho’s eyes are sparkling at this proximity, his big brown pupils exuding curiosity and tenderness as he gauges your every reaction to his touches.

“Minho,” you breathe out desperately, arching into his touch to chase the friction.

“What?” He asks sweetly, his expression shifting into that of concern as he waits for you to speak. But he knows what you’re going to ask, also aware of the tent pitched in his boxers as he works you.

“Don’t make me ask,” you say with a sheepish chuckle.

He chuckles softly, too, leaning in to press a chaste kiss to your lips before pulling his hand away.

“Let me get a condom,” Minho says in a serious tone. And you’d completely forgotten about protection, not even having used a condom in ages, since your only partner for several years has been Jung.

With the painful ache between your legs, you wish so badly you could ask him to fuck you raw and help ease the weeks of waiting you’ve had to do just to feel some sense of relief. And a part of you can’t help but think back to your days of college, when Minho would always ensure he kept a new one between the crisp bills in his wallet. Ones that were put to use with other women, Minho always so careful not to make any stupid mistakes or take risks the way you and Jung often did.

But you can’t let him fuck you raw, being in the middle of nowhere, no access to pills and admittedly not the most punctual at remembering to take your birth control. The last thing you can do right now is show up to your own wedding with Jung- pregnant with Minho’s child.

Minho’s cock is fully erect as he fishes around his backpack for a condom, pulling out his wallet and sorting through the bills for one. You briefly wonder what would happen if he didn’t have one- you’d likely ask him to fuck you anyway, and to finish on your face or your tits. But it’d be such a waste not to let him finish inside of you, not when you’re both this aroused and desperate for some sense of relief

You silently pray he won’t think too hard about any of this. Don’t think about who I am to you. Don’t think about how this will complicate things, and don’t think about the fact that I’m engaged to another man. Just fuck me, and we’ll deal with whatever consequences arise tomorrow.

“Got it,” Minho voices, and you feel yourself exhale the breath you’ve been holding this whole time.

Minho approaches you again, pinching it between his two fingers, tearing open the silver packet with his skewed front teeth and pulling out the white rubber. You watch with bated breath as he rests a knee on the bed beside you, steadying himself with one hand and rolling the condom onto his length with one hand.

It’s the first time you’ve properly taken note of the appearance of his cock, and he’s bigger than you’d imagined. His thick, veiny girth is tinted a bright shade of red in anticipation, his head leaking a bead of precum as the rubber grazes his tip and coats every inch of his flesh. You’re a little disappointed at the sight being obscured by the protection, but you take a sharp breath, anyway, wanting nothing more than to just feel it inside of you.

“Are you sure this is okay?” Minho asks, as he hovers over you again and props himself up with two hands. “If you think we’re making some mistake-”

“We’re not,” you say quickly. “It’s not a mistake. I promise you I’m not drunk or out of my mind or anything. I’m just really fucking horny.”

Minho chuckles lightly, and then he leans into graze his lips over yours just barely, delivering a painfully light kiss as he positions himself in front of you.

“Just tell me if you want me to stop,” he says, pressing another light kiss to your lips. “I promise I won’t get mad or anything.”

You nod eagerly, wrapping your arms around his neck, and then you both maintain eye contact with his hands as he carefully guides the tip of his length inside of you. You feel like you could cum at the sensation of his tip alone, your walls contracting around him desperately as he shuts his eyes in pleasure.

“Jesus,” Minho breathes. “You’re tight.”

“It’s been a month since he fucked me,” you admit shyly. “I haven’t even touched myself.”

And Minho takes it as a signal to snake a hand down between your bodies, latching the pads of his fingers to your clit once more and rubbing in gentle circles.

“He’s a fucking idiot,” Minho says plainly. “What a fucking joke.”

You weave your fingers in his golden brown tresses pulling him in for another kiss as he begins to thrust in and out of you with gentle movements so as not to hurt you. And it feels heavenly, like nothing you’ve ever felt with Jung before. There’s so much fear circling your mind, but it simply elevates the arousal you feel at the same time, your mind and body contracting in syncopation to echo the same sentiment that maybe you have indeed, been jealous of some of the other girls he’s fucked. Maybe your jealousy forced you to shut out the idea of anybody being pleasured like this by your best friend. You silently pray it never felt half this good for any of them, that he simply couldn’t get hard for them or maybe he’d neglected the same parts that drive you crazy in this moment. Because the thought of his cock inside of anybody except for you drives you mad, it feels so unnatural to think about when he’s fucking you so sweetly in the privacy of your tent, here in the middle of nowhere. Virtually impossible to feel an ounce of guilt when the nearest human is likely miles away, made even harder considering the only man who’d even care is much, much farther.

And Minho hopes you can’t feel that he’s been trying to stave off his own orgasm for the better part of 20 minutes now. His cock twitching with every thrust, his eyes shutting tightly to give attention to the sensation of your cunt clenching desperately around his thick girth. He can’t remember how he’d imagined it all those years, but he knows this feels much, much better than any fantasized version of you that ran rampant in his thoughts. One he had to stop himself from staring at a little too long when you’d opt to wear short skirts and tight little shirts to the clubs you’d frequent. A version of you he swore would one day come around to the realization that Jung isn’t meant for you, that he doesn’t fulfill you emotionally, or intellectually or even physically. Even a version of you that found exhilaration in fucking Minho behind Jung’s back, because having any version of you belong to Minho in one form or another would always take precedence over your inevitable absence following the wedding.

“Talk to me,” Minho says, as his thrusts slow a little. “Tell me what you’re thinking about.”

“You,” you’re quick to respond. “I can’t believe this is happening.”

Minho captures your lips in a drooly kiss, gasping into your parted lips as he thrusts in again and holds it there for a moment.

“Is it still okay?” He asks, like he hasn’t already been fucking you for several minutes now.

“It’s more than okay,” you respond, folding your leg at the knee beside him so that he’s hitting an entirely new angle.

“Jesus Christ,” Minho breathes, squeezing his eyes as his cock grazes your cunt even deeper.

Your breaths are labored now, involuntary gasps escaping your mouth with every thrust inside of you. His cock is completely buried to the hilt inside of you, the condom completely coated in your juices and working out of you with complete ease as he fucks you.

And he fucks you like he’s yours, like he’s the one getting married to you, perhaps subconsciously to prove a point to both you and Jung. He could never fuck you like this. I’m willing to bet he never has. He could never want you the way I do so passionately and unrelenting.

“Minho,” you call to him, arching into his touch as he moves a strand of hair out of your face.

“What is it?”

“This is okay, right?,” you state, though your tone takes the form of a plea, tears pricking the corners of your eyes. “It feels so good, I don’t want to ruin things-”

“It won’t ruin things,” Minho emphasizes. “We’re drunk, remember?” he says with a light chuckle.

His face is promptly buried in the crook of your neck, peppering kisses along the flesh and whispering promises against you that exist only in the intimate space of your shared tent.

“I’m just helping you out while we’re here,” Minho repeats. “And then you have a wedding to run off to.”

You smile up at him, fingers massaging his scalp lightly as he stays still inside of you, his cock pulsating lightly inside of the rubber as you take him.

“I would’ve asked for help a lot sooner if I knew it’d be this good,” you say with a saccharine smile, allowing your fingers to loop in his hair and tug lightly.

Minho chuckles down at you, his smile instilling an almost immediate sense of comfort once more as he begins to move again, his cock grazing your cervix with every slight movement as he lets out little gasps over you.

“I think I’m gonna cum,” you breathe through labored pants. Your tone sounds surprised, almost, at the prospect of your best friend coaxing an orgasm out of you.

And maybe you are, never having thought that this camping trip would end up with him inside of you, making love to you the way you picture the events of your honeymoon to unfold. Your best friend since college, and the most vocally displeased person at the reality of your engagement to Jung.

And the moment Minho’s been fantasizing since he first confronted his own feelings for you, a time completely unbeknownst to him now. Maybe it was the time you let him stay in your dorm bed when he wasn’t feeling good, or the time you baked him his favorite cake for his birthday most people seemed to have forgotten about. But the pinpointed time doesn’t matter right now- he’s here, your entire being is his for the night, and love or not, he’ll take any form of you he can grasp so desperately at.

“Fuck, I’m gonna cum, too,” Minho says back, his hands digging into your waist as he moves a little faster.

For several moments, nothing else is said between the two of you, only the echoing sounds of skin and drool and his toned body working itself in and out of you teeming around the dinky little tent like an erotic film on low volume. The sounds are muffled, both of you doing your best to remain hushed in your words and your breathy exchanges to each other, almost as if it’ll all be too real if you voice it any louder than this.

But all of this is very real, the actions serving as a sealed promise between the two of you to maintain this remarkable relationship you’ve developed with him. One in which you traverse the complexities of dating a man who’s never quite fulfilled you the way Minho caught on to very early on. And in turn, Minho uses the opportunity to fulfill you in every way he’s able to, whether it means being there at 3am to lend a kindly ear, concocting your favorite dishes after waking up hungover as a result of drinking to mask Jung’s shortcomings. And even to fuck away the stress Jung instills inside of you. To meet you halfway with his version of intimacy, one Jung has withheld from you for so long, and to remind you that although the marriage implies permanence, things could still be so, so different.

“Cum for me,” Minho says to you, leaning in to keep his lips pressed to yours. “Just let go of everything. Don’t think about him right now.”

And somehow it’s those words that assist you in reaching your finish, the subtle command to eject Jung from all your thoughts and replace him with Minho and Minho and more Minho.

It’s Minho easing the pain, Minho kissing you so tenderly, Minho thrusting his hardened cock in and out of your soaking cunt as you whimper helplessly beneath him.

And it’s Minho who finishes first, squeezing his eyes tightly as he feels his tip releases strings of cum into the constriction of the rubber condom, the finish feeling as though it’s the heaviest he’s had in months.

And the gentle pulse against your flesh coaxes out your own release, contracting around his wet girth and dribbling cum along the length of the condom as he fucks you through your fervent moans.

“God, you’re amazing,” Minho voices, as he pulls you in for a much gentler kiss. He holds his lips there momentarily, grazing them softly over yours, every part of him wanting to stay right here inside of you.

But as his cock begins to soften against him once more, he pulls out without another word, stripping off the condom while you watch him.

Strands of sweaty hair hang loosely in front of his face, framing his flushed appearance as his nimble fingers work to tie the condom off. He looks so attainable, so forgiving as he moves, and every part of you wants nothing more than to pull him close again and keep him tangled in your needy embrace.

“Minho?” You ask, as you sit up on the palms of your hands to meet his gaze.

“Hm?” He hums in response, discarding the condom and running two hands through his disheveled hair.

“Would you stay like this?”

He chuckles softly, occupying his spot again and pulling the blankets up to his chest.

“I’m not taking the floor anymore, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“No, would you stay... close to me?” You ask shyly, your eyes flickering over his figure as he lies beside you.

He sits up to meet your gaze, reaching a hand out to you, his palm facing upward as he shoots you a sweet smile.

“I can stay close to you,” Minho reaffirms, pulling you close to his chest as he lies flat again, your head resting on his broad chest.

His chest rises and falls with every breath, his eyes shutting gently as he revels in the sensation of you seeking comfort beside him like this. And he can’t help but press a series of soft kisses to your temple, smiling when he hears a soft giggle escape your lips.

When the tent falls quiet once more, your listless bodies welcome the sleepiness that washes over you, euphonious melodies of crickets engaging in the sounds of nightfall outside. And Minho’s hand rubs gentle back and forth motions along the small of your back, reassuring for one last time that you have nothing to feel guilty about.

It’s like a moth to a flame, the way you’re drawn to Minho in the morning, despite the promise of it being just one night with him.

You’re hypnotized by the way he pulls on his sweatpants, chuckling as he nearly trips over himself in the confined space of the tent. His veiny hands working nimbly to chop vegetables and crush herbs as he prepares you one of his signature omelets. The silence that falls over you both while you eat, two fascinated gazes stuck on each other knowing very well you’d let him do it all over again if you weren’t so pressed for time. And when he’s helping you hoist your heavy backpack over his shoulders, the pressing urge to kiss him is present again, as though you seek a reminder that what occurred was indeed real and not some lucid dream conjured up within the darkened campsite.

An urge which you act upon, leaning into press your lips to his as he turns to ask if you’re all packed. And one which is reciprocated with a smile from him, grinning against your lips as he takes his time cupping a hand to your cheek and grazing his fingertips along your skin tenderly. With no real purpose, no sexual implication, no rush. Simply a kiss to conclude the trip, which may very well have been everything you needed as it precedes the wedding.

And with shared smiles between the two of you, Minho leads as you make your way back through the informational center. The same woman is sat at the desk, except she says nothing as you pass her by, a scowl on her face at the sight of you. You watch as she bows politely to other guests, inquires about their stay and offers them hard candies from the glass jar in front of her. Except she says nothing to you, almost appearing to shake her head as you pass her by.

“She was nicer yesterday,” you voice to Minho, your concerned gaze scanning his expression for a reaction. But he doesn’t give one, shrugging lightly as he holds the door for you on the way out.

“She’s probably having a bad day,” he says back. “Don’t worry about it.”

And it’s not until he takes your hand in his again that you realize it- this woman who you’d so confidently corrected on the fact that Minho is not in fact your fiancé, has witnessed you kissing him and holding his hand on your way out. Like a scarlet letter you wear upon your chest, except it’s you who put it there. Confirmation that you’re disloyal- a cheater, simply put. You want to defend your actions, but realistically, to whom? Not to Minho, who actively facilitated it. Not to Jung, who would kill you both if he knew.

And not even to the elderly woman, who you can’t explain it to, because it’s different. It’s not cheating, not when it’s Minho. He’s not some drunken hookup from a dive bar, or someone who’s relentlessly pursued you despite your protests. He’s your best friend, one who did you a favor in the absence of your fiancé’s desire to satisfy you. It’s different, you want to say to her. It’s not cheating with Minho- he’s different.

But you settle on the uncomfortable silence that remains when you climb into the passenger seat of Minho’s car, watching the trees melt into a blur of green hues as he backs out of the parking lot. And his hand meets yours over the center console, intertwining your fingers to put your mind at ease like he can somehow read your mind.

Perhaps he can, being the person who’s known every one of your thoughts so intimately since your time in college. And he also reads into your dismissal of the event when you finally let out a gentle sigh, lacing your fingers with his and allowing him to press a kiss to the back of your hand.

The arrival home is a non ceremonious one, Minho dropping you off a block before your shared apartment with Jung to avoid the interrogation he knows he’ll get.

He assists in gathering your bags, consolidating your items to ensure you can comfortably carry them up the block. And for a minute, the two of you say nothing as he sends you on your way, a kind of sparkle present in his eyes as he stares at you. He looks different today, a saccharine smile on his face and a much calmer demeanor overall. Every bone in your body wants to jump him and pepper him in kisses, to thank him for relieving the pent up sexual frustration in you and affirming that your fears surrounding this wedding are valid, but they don’t imply that you won’t enjoy married life, either. They’re just… feelings, ones you often find trouble confronting in the presence of Jung, and ones that you realize you’ve probably never confronted at all, if not around Minho.

The fears are valid, and they’re not fleeting in the slightest. But they are lessened with the reminder that Minho’s beside you every step of the way- regardless of how it manifests in your relationship. And the silence remains, as Minho shoots you a small wave, his eyes flickering briefly over the distant outline of your apartment.

“Hey,” you call out to Jung, who’s lazily sprawled out over the sofa, his feet laid flat upon the coffee table.

“How was the trip?” He asks enthusiastically, not taking his eyes off the sports channel that echoes loudly in front of him.

“Oh, you know,” you reply casually. “Just yoga. Always good to see old friends, though.”

“I’ll bet,” Jung replies, chuckling sarcastically as he speaks. “Seems like the only person you’re around these days is Minho.”

And then he reaches for the remote, lazily flipping through channels as you set your bag down.

“He’s my oldest friend,” you say casually, hoping he won’t notice the audible shakiness in your tone. It feels like he can hear how loud your thoughts are, the fears circling your mind, an expression on your face painted with incrimination. You think of your heart racing while Minho kissed you, the way his cock felt inside of you, your clit pulsating gently at the mere memory of it.

“Yeah, well, change is good,” Jung finishes. As you turn the corner, to meet him in front of the couch, you take note of his lap- a small, white cardboard box propped upon his sweatpants, the top ripped to keep it open and his hands working and out of it in rushed motions.

It’s the cake, you quickly realizing, your heart sinking a little at the sight of the frosting in complete disarray, almost half the dessert either smeared around the sides or piled on the fork he brings up to his lips.

“Listen,” Jung says, between a mouthful of food. “I have a golf thing this week and I want you to come see a couple buddies of mine.”

“This week?” You echo, your mind pondering all the potential excuses you can use against him. But nothing comes to mind, as Jung sets the box of cake aside and stands up from the couch.

“Yeah,” he says casually. “My buddy from college is gonna be in town, and he wants to get together before the wedding.”

You want so badly to protest his offer, knowing very well that Jung’s friends are nothing short of insufferable. They very seldom like you, openly voicing their concerns with your flaws, and they’re protective of him, as though Jung is the one who’s sacrificing more by being wed to you.

“Do I have a choice?” You ask, a small smile on your lips to offset the anger that could very well erupt in response to your statement.

But Jung just brings two hands up to your shoulder, rubbing the sides as he turns his attention back to the television.

“Not really. Hey, the game’s on again but make sure to clear your calendar on Thursday for me. And let’s bring that wine we got recently.”

“The white one?” You question, sagging your shoulders a little at his lack of hesitation to offer your favorite wine as a housewarming gift to his friends.

“Yeah, that one,” he says plainly, pressing a chaste kiss to your forehead and slinging his body back over the couch.

“By the way,” Jung voices, motioning for you to move out of the view of the tv screen. “Where’s the cake from? Shit’s good.”

Your gaze lands on the box again, completely torn apart, the icing letters indistinguishable and the fondant ribbons in disarray on the cardboard. You can’t help but think of Minho and his careful attention to detail- the way he picked all your favorite colors, the flavors he knows you love, all from your favorite bakery you very seldom even visit because of the steep price points.

“Babe?” Jung calls again, spooning a layer of frosting into his mouth. “I asked where the cake was from.”

And you shrug casually as you pivot on your heel to exit the room.

“Minho picked it,” you say as you stride away from his still-slouched figure. “I wouldn’t know.”

“You have to freeze your cake and eat a piece of it every wedding anniversary,” Jung’s friend Kwang explains, as he brings a cigar to his lips and inhales generously. “That’s what we did, and we still have enough red velvet to last fucking years in there.”

“I love it,” Jung replies in a chuckle, slinging an arm over your shoulder and nudging you harshly. “Course, I’m not sure this one could stop herself from eating the rest of our cake for a whole year. She’s got a bigger sweet tooth than I do.”

You distance yourself from Jung a little, fiddling with your golf club as the men share echoing laughter between puffs of smoke.

The golf course Jung frequents is massive, spanning several hectares of land, which means you’re often stuck here for a long while during his golf sessions. His friends are the same detestable group of men he’s usually out with, all old friends from college you’ve since been forced to get acquainted with. And together they talk each others’ ears off about sports, food, making subtle digs at their own wives or partners, and of course, golf. The blinding shade of green hills contrasts harshly against a pale blue sky and depicts an almost cartoon scenery, and you can feel the headache in your temples worsening with every loud chuckle that escapes Jung’s lips.

He hasn’t asked once about your yoga retreat- which may be a blessing of sorts when you recall the events that unfolded. But you know it’s got nothing to do with that, and everything to do with the fact that he doesn’t give a shit.

He probably doesn’t even remember you were gone, nor does he care to fill you in on the details that unfolded while you were away. And it wouldn’t matter, because you know it would be exactly some version of this- his obnoxious friends, golf, sports on tv and bragging about his proximity to a married life with you. Strangely enough, you’re normally able to stomach these conversations when you’re forced to go out with Jung. But somehow today, every word he utters aggravates you, and you’re desperate to find some excuse to make it home again.

Except you also know very well that it’s something else eating away at your mind this afternoon.

“Y/n?” Kwang questions, and you snap your head to look at him, realizing you’ve tuned out most of his talking points up until now.

“Yes?”

“It’s your turn,” he says, gesturing to your golf club. Jung watches you and chuckles, almost embarrassed with you, as he mirrors Kwang’s gesture.

“Go on,” Jung says condescendingly. “Remember how I taught you last time.”

And with the golf club in your timid grasp, you approach the tee, positioning your club out in front of you and doing your best to mimic the way Jung taught you. Or rather the way he yelled at you to memorize, always taking his sports endeavors far too seriously.

The club head rests gently against the golf ball, pulling back momentarily as your hands shift and tighten around the grip again. And Kwang exhales another puff of smoke, a light chuckle escaping his lips as his eyes bore into your standing figure.

“Her form’s gotten a little better,” he remarks to Jung.

“Yeah, because of me,” Jung says back.

“And good thing, too,” Kwang voices. “If she’d gotten better without your help it’d mean someone else was helping her.”

He laughs as he finishes speaking, transitioning to a coughing fit as you turn to meet Jung’s gaze. But Jung doesn’t look back at you, he simply pats Kwang’s back and exchanges laughter of his own.

“That’s true!” Jung echoes through a fit of laughter, like it’s the best joke he’s heard all century.

“Could you imagine if she pulled up here better than you?” Kwang says, flicking stray ashes off his cigar. “Some other man doing your part for you?”

Jung chuckles again, pulling a box of cigars from the pocket inside of his blazer and thumbing at a fresh one. You watch as he flips open a small bronze Zippo lighter, a small metal clink emitting from behind his cupped hand, as he brings the cigar head to the little yellow flame and holds it there momentarily.

“Fuckin’ A,” Jung remarks with the cigar hanging between his lips.

When it’s lit successfully, he pockets the lighter again, taking a generous puff and blowing smoke just past the direction of Kwang’s still-laughing figure.

“They say that’s how you know your wife’s disloyal,” he remarks. “Her sports form never worsens.”

You stand awkwardly, your fingers grazing the rubber of the golf club grip as you say nothing. Their laughter continues to swirl the atmosphere around you, the sound of the birds and the buzzing cicadas drowning out amidst their cackles. The sun beams entirely too bright down over you, the artificial grass seeming to turn an even more obnoxious shade of green as you wait for them to finish.

“Better hope this one’s not disloyal,” Kwang says amidst his jokes, nudging your upper thigh with the tip of his own golf club. “That’s a lot of planning down the drain.”

And somehow the words trigger the familiar arrhythmic beat in your chest, flashbacks of Minho crossing your mind instantaneously. It’s like they know, the way their jokes seem to run on forever, their wicked cackling taunting you with every passing second. They speak of your form and your position, and you can’t help but picture the way Minho had you sprawled over the bed for you, his toned body looming over yours as he fucked you like he was consummating a marriage.

Beads of sweat trickle down your forehead as the sun glares over you, and the feeling is reminiscent of your sweaty bodies tangled together in the confined space of the tent. Was it you who came first? Was it Minho? The details are a little blurry right now as you try to steady your breathing, every single fear coming to life as you use your golf club to keep upright.

Disloyal. Another man. Cheater.

Their words replay in your mind and produce offspring of new ones, alluding to implications of broken trust and shattered plans. Hypothetical talks of one whole year of planning down the drain, another man with his hands all over you fulfilling Jung’s role in his absence and improving your form.

They know. They know you cheated, this is Jung’s way of humiliating you in front of his closest friend before he publicly calls off the marriage. He’s going to confront you about it any second now. He’s going to drag Minho’s name through the mud, and possibly also his corpse when he’s done with him-

“Y/n?” A voice interrupts, and your head snaps in the direction of their still gazes. The atmosphere is quiet now, birds chirping overhead once more, cicadas buzzing rhythmically in the distance again.

“Huh?”

“You want to forfeit your turn?” Jung asks with a chuckle. “We’ve been waiting for you to start for ten minutes now.”

Your gaze falls down to your hands, gripped tightly around the rubber of the club still, the ball remaining immobile on the little red tee.

“Uh, sure,” you reply, handing the golf club to Jung as he shakes his head.

You watch with an embarrassed expression as Jung grasps the club skillfully, pulling back and twisting his heel as he produces a robust hit, the ball lifting off its tee and soaring into the distance over the green hill.

“She can’t be disloyal,” Jung says with a chuckle, as he prods you with his golf club for the nth time today. “She can’t even complete one round successfully. Any other man would’ve taught her that’s not how you golf.”

At the one week mark since you’ve seen Minho, he’s aware something is wrong. You haven’t picked up his calls, haven’t responded to a single one of his texts, and you feign tiredness or some made up illness when he offers to stop by at hours he knows Jung isn’t home. But you don’t entertain any of it, fearing still that Jung knows, and that this is going to be the end of your marriage.

A fleeting physical endeavor caused by your fiancé’s stubbornness, and yet it’s effectively going to be the end of what was supposed to be your entire future. Seeing Minho will only reignite every fear present inside of you, causing it to coax the truth out of you and confront your fears in the presence of Jung.

The fear of what a lifetime of marriage implies. Are you meant to feel like teenagers in love for the entirety of it? Do the fights last a lifetime? Are you supposed to find a middle ground, or will there always be a need for somebody like Minho to provide some clarity and help you rekindle things to the best of your abilities?

What if in a week, you hate the cake flavor you’ve picked? What if you find yourselves so comfortable it doesn’t feel like love anymore? What if you spend a lifetime picturing it’s Minho fucking you instead of Jung, just to get off at night?

What happens to the marriage then? Does the love fizzle out until it’s a comfortable state of tolerance, one in which you’re sacrificing happiness for stability? Or does it simply exist somewhere else- or with somebody else? What’s implied by a lifetime of this?

Minho’s always been a worrier at heart, though, and he won’t let up until he’s certain your relationship to him isn’t at risk of dissipating, too. So at 11pm on a Friday, when he knows Jung is out with the same group of friends, he makes his move to confront you.

The living room is completely quiet at this hour, a soft ticking noise from the clock overhead as you flip past a page in your book. A romance novel, one littered with smut and cheesy dialogue, true to the lonely housewife you’re already conditioning yourself to be. And as your gaze falls over the first sentence of a new chapter, a knocking at the front door interrupts you.

It’s not Jung- it can’t be at this hour, his return home always signaled by his loud stumbling through the doorway, the jingling of his keys and drunken steps over the shoes he so conveniently forgets to put on the shoe rack.

You wrap your arms around the knit holes of your sweater, approaching the door hesitantly. It’s likely one of Jung’s friends, late to the party, or even one of your own girlfriends, here for a late night gossip session. But when you unlatch the door and pull it open, your heart drops at the sight of Minho, his hands shoved in his pockets and his figure standing slouched as his head looks up to meet your gaze.

“Hi,” says Minho, giving you a thin-lipped smile.

You give him a small nod, unsure of what to reply.

He looks handsome tonight, in a dark denim jacket and a pair of jeans. His golden-brown tresses fall loosely around his chiseled face, and his eyes look a little tired, like he hasn’t gotten much sleep.

“Minho,” you say plainly, fidgeting with a loose hem on the inside of your sleeve. “What are you doing here?”

Minho shrugs, peering into the doorway behind you, and then his eyes lock on yours again.

“I never taught you how to gut a fish,” Minho replies.

“I was just- what?”

“A fish,” Minho repeats. “I never taught you how to gut one.”

“Yeah, because we didn’t catch any,” you reply, a short chuckle escaping your lips.

“I know,” Minho says. “I was wondering if you wanted to come over and gut one.”

“Now?” You reply, glancing at the darkened street behind him. “It’s late.”

“Yeah, and Jung isn’t home until early morning. There’s a salmon defrosting on my counter as we speak, assuming the cats haven’t gotten to it. And I was wondering if you wanted to gut it.”

And he’s doing that thing again, where he takes the problem at hand and makes it so much more miniscule than it actually is. This state between disloyalty and tension you feel toward Jung, and the conflicting feelings you have toward Minho and the trip’s subsequent events. But he doesn’t address any of that- instead, he takes issue with you never having gotten to gut a fish. And that’s a relief, when you think about the other option of verbally confronting the emotions you keep at bay.

“Is it messy?” You ask with a little smile.

“It’s messy,” Minho replies.

“What if I’m bad at it?”

“Then you’re bad at it. But I’ll help you. Mess and all.”

You turn around to peer back into the hallway, at the book lying open and flat on the couch, the second hand on the clock moving painfully slow and the dim lamp illuminating the room around you. There’s not much of anything to stick around for, not when Jung’s still going to be out for hours on end. And not when a part of you is dying to confront the situation with Minho in the privacy of his place.

“You can’t laugh if I’m bad,” you say to Minho as you turn back to face him, slipping on your shoes in the process

“I won’t laugh,” he retorts. “No promises, of course.”

Two hours later, the kitchen is littered with napkins, plates, gloves, filet knives and scales. Minho walks you through how to remove the roe and the milt, discarding them for you as you prep your filet knife. He verbally instructs you how to descale the fish, and when you make minimal progress, he guides your hand up and down the length of the salmon with his, giving a little nod as the scales fall off with ease and uncover the smooth finish beneath.

He’s understanding when your reluctant hands fail to cut through to the back bone, chuckling lightly as he helps you cut that, too. And when you successfully pluck the remainder of the pin bones with tweezers, he nods proudly, giving you a thumbs up as you dispose of the fish parts and slide the plate of pink slabs to him across the counter.

“You did really well,” Minho says comfortingly. “You’re very attentive to detail. I don’t think there’s a single pin bone still on there.”

“It’s a little gross,” you say, shaking off your hands and chuckling lightly.

“But the end result will be worth it,” he replies. “Somebody plucked the pin bones off every filet you’ve eaten.”

You hit his arm lightly, as he laughs, coating the slabs in seasoning as you pull your gloves off.

“Minho,” you voice nervously, as he keeps his attention on the plate of fish in front of him.

“Hm?”

“Should we… talk about what happened?”

He sprinkles dried parsley atop the filet, not looking at you as you hold your breath for an answer.

“We can talk about it,” Minho replies simply. “Or we can choose not to. It was just a favor I ran you.”

You nod in response, watching as he swaps out parsley for onion powder and sprinkles lightly.

“Can we talk about it?” You say finally, twiddling your thumbs together.

Minho sets down the glass jar, turning to face you and pulling off his gloves, too.

“Sure,” he says, leaning back against the counter and giving you his undivided attention. Your heartbeat quickens momentarily at the sight of him focusing solely on you, and you struggle to find the words to say. But Minho is faster, taking reins of the conversation and breaking the deafening silence between you two.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” Minho finally says, a kind of sadness evident in his tone.

“I was scared,” you reply. “I felt like Jung knew. It could ruin all of our wedding plans.”

“There’s no way he can find out,” Minho says. “I haven’t said a word to anyone. Unless you felt inclined to say something-”

“God, no,” you reply quickly. “I wouldn’t dare say anything.”

“Good,” Minho then says. “Then it was just a mistake in the heat of the moment. There’s nothing to worry about.”

And somehow the words sting a little, this conclusion that the affair was a mistake. Was it a mistake? You’re not sure- though you are sure of the complete sense of ease it instilled in you, and the fact that it hasn’t left your mind in a whole week.

“Are we okay?” You ask him, a nervous expression painting your face as you wait for an answer.

And Minho nods confidently, pulling on a fresh set of gloves as he reaches for the salt and pepper shakers.

“We’re fine,” Minho reassures. “If you think anything is getting in the way of a decade of you being stuck with me, then you’re mistaken.”

You laugh lightly, pulling on another pair of gloves too and joining Minho in front of the plate of fish.

“You want to pan fry this?” Minho asks, changing the subject. “I’ll walk you through it.”

Your eyes scan the well-seasoned strips of salmon, and then Minho’s comforting figure beside you, as he slides you a pair of tongs.

“Yeah,” you say to him. “Let’s finish this thing.”

Minho’s right- the end result is worth it. The fish is tender, well-seasoned, paired beautifully with his favorite bottle of white wine over an old comedy movie.

And everything feels like it’s back to normal once more as you sit beside him, your plates completely void of food as you finish your glasses of wine and sit back comfortably.

As the end credits roll, Minho lowers the volume, but he doesn’t shut off the television yet, taking another sip from his glass as your gazes fix on the names disappearing on screen.

Your eyes scan Minho’s mostly-vacant walls, at the things and the stuff he’s moved around. And he has, a couple new photographs displayed neatly on the wall in gold frames.

Most of them are black and white photographs you recognize to be cityscapes. And among the collage, placed right in the middle, the only photo with an ounce of color catches your eye.

“Shirakawa,” you say to Minho, cocking your head at the photograph.

It’s a wide shot of the town, bright green grass contrasting the traditional brown farmhouses that span the entirety of the landscape.

“Mhm,” Minho affirms, giving a little nod as he looks over the photograph, too.

You remain like that for a moment, reveling in the view, and then you finally break the comfortable silence once more.

“Could you tell me about it?” You ask him sweetly. “Just anything.”

Minho thinks back to the facts of Shirakawa he stores in the corner of his mind for a moment, sorting through facts and tales he’s held onto since college. Little stories he’s always wished to pass along again one day.

“Those are called Gasshō-Zukuri houses,” Minho says. “Which directly translates to hands in prayer.”

You cock your head in the other direction, nodding at his words, and seeing exactly what he speaks of. The houses do resemble two hands in prayer, the triangular thatched roofs almost reminiscent of a church’s.

“The roofs were designed to prevent heavy snowfall,” he continues. “Which the town is notorious for receiving. But apparently it’s like a little winter land when you’re there.”

His voice trails off a little at the last syllable, getting quiet again as he folds his hands in his lap.

“Which is pretty cool,” Minho finishes, pulling back from divulging too much information about the town he could go on about forever.

And he doesn’t know you’d gladly listen to him talk about it forever, being continuously fascinated with his appreciation for the centuries-old town across the world from you two. You nod in response to his words, imagining the winters those tucked away in that little town must experience- blankets of snow and freezing temperatures, and yet so warm inside those historical homes loved by people all around the world.

“We’ll go one day,” you say to Minho finally, turning to meet his gaze.

He turns to look at you, too, a somber expression on his face as he listens to you speak.

“We’ll go to Shirakawa one day. I promise it.”

Minho swallows nervously, well aware of how close you are to him on the couch now. Your face at such a close distance to him, your limbs resting right beside each other as his eyes flicker over your parted lips.

Minho engages in the nervous habits he always does, blinking nervously a few times and toying with the lobe of his ear. But he doesn’t act on anything, not wanting to push the boundaries you’ve practically just set in place. The same boundaries that concluded it was a mistake in the heat of the moment. So then why do you feel so inclined to kiss him all over again, let your body tangle with his and ease your stress as he assists in confronting all your fears preceding the wedding? Why does the idea of a lifelong commitment feel so much less intimidating when you’re in the presence of Minho? And what are you doing having these thoughts about your best friend when you’re getting married to somebody else in a month?

Thoughts that fail to induce an answer from you- instead interrupted and subsequently silenced by your lips on Minho’s again, kissing him with such desperation the way you did before.

And though desperate, it's still tender, his eyes shutting instinctively as his hands cup your cheeks and pull you closer. And you’ve nowhere to go but his lap, straddling his waist with your legs as you refuse to break away from the kiss, your kisses turning hungrier by the second as his hands find your waist.

This implication to fuck you is far greater this time, a pressing urge between the two of you to mirror the night’s actions and confirm it really did happen. That he did fuck you that night in your tent, and that you both came with each other and for each other, your bodies releasing the pent-up frustration you’re now certain has existed for years.

“Is this okay?” Minho begins to ask, his hands grazing your sides, and your kisses trail down his neck to provide a clear answer to his concern.

“Please,” you plead, nibbling a light bruise into his flesh. “I haven’t stopped thinking about you.”

“I don’t want you to feel guilty-”

“I don’t,” you say, moving to meet his lips again. “It feels so right with you. Please, could we do it again?”

Minho’s breath hitches in his throat as you palm him over the fabric of his jeans, his erection already visible for you.

“I want to,” Minho gasps. “But you’re getting married. I don’t want you to make another mistake-”

“It was never a mistake,” you say breathlessly. “Not the first time, not now. It feels so different with you. Do you feel it too?”

You pull away momentarily, hands cupped around the back of his neck as you wait for his answer. And Minho shoots a nervous smile in response; sheepishly toying with his hair as he struggles to voice his feelings.

“I… do,” Minho begins. “But I want you to-”

“Don’t worry about me,” you say, leaning in to resume pressing kisses along his neck. “Just fuck me like he doesn’t exist,” you finish, your lips working against his once more and guiding his hands down to your waist.

Although you were the one worried of getting found out, you can’t keep your distance from him, wanting nothing more than to feel him inside of you all over again. Coaxing your own arousal out of you, encouraging you to forget all about him the way you’ve been trying to do in the absence of Minho. But with him here in front of you, you know the only way to shut Jung out of your mind is to fill it with thoughts of Minho, and Minho and more Minho.

“I… can do that…” Minho says with another nervous chuckle, as you unzip his jeans and palm him through his boxers.

“Call me something other than my name,” you say to him, pressing a series of chaste kisses to his lips. “Say it like I’m yours.”

And Minho reaches up to tuck a strand of hair behind your ear, pulling away again to look into your eyes.

“Baby?” He questions nervously, eliciting a smile from you.

“Yeah. Like that.”

“Yeah, baby?” He says again, reciprocating confidently now as you stroke him over his boxers. “You want me to make you forget about him?”

“Please,” you beg again. “You’re so much better than him.”

And amidst the ego boost, Minho can feel his cock swell, painfully hard in your firm grasp now as you stroke him.

“Wait,” Minho says, wincing slightly as you slow your movements. “I don’t want to cum yet.”

“Then hurry up and fuck me,” you smirk down at him, looping your fingers in the waistband of his jeans and tugging slightly. And Minho sits up straighter, smirking back, as he moves to press you down against the couch and hover over you.

“You want me to fuck you?” Minho asks, using one hand to tug his jeans down to his thighs. “God, you haven’t stopped thinking about it, haven’t you?”

“Not once,” you admit, wrapping two arms around his neck and pulling him down toward you. “I would’ve asked you to fuck me years ago if I knew what I was missing out on.”

The two of you share giggles as his jeans are discarded on the floor, followed by his t-shirt, and then your pants and your t-shirt, leaving him in just his boxers, and you in your bra and panties.

Minho lowers himself against your clothed core, rubbing ever so gently against you to provide some relief to his aching shaft as he works his kisses against your drooly lips. And he smiles in between every slight movement, completely satisfied at the fact that it’s him rubbing against you like this and taking care of you instead of Jung. For the second time this month.

The idea that Jung is completely clueless to this game you play behind his back, that he still comes home thinking you belong to anyone except Minho. Both in mind and body, your entire being is intertwined with Minho in every way possible.

And you both know it, judging by the way you grab at each other like a pair of horny teenagers on a first date, trying everything in your ability to hold onto the feeling. Also by the way he’s so patient and forgiving with his movements, stil careful not to move too fast in case you decide you want to stop. And an unspoken promise between the two of you, that no matter what happens, the friendship will remain, that it simply can’t slip through your fingers after a decade of promises to each other.

“Let’s go to Shirakawa,” you say to Minho in a whisper, finally tugging his boxers down and freeing his erection against abdomen.

“You want to?” Minho asks, tugging your panties down, too.

“Yes, I want to,” you reply. “We’ve talked about it for so long. Tell me what we’ll do there.”

“Well we’ll definitely go fishing,” Minho begins, pressing a chaste kiss to your lips as he discards your panties on the floor beside you. “And I’ll help gut all the salmon with you.”

“Mhm,” you voice in a dreamy tone, massaging his hair with the tips of your fingers.

“And then we can see all the animals there,” he continues, positioning himself over you and lifting your leg a little to get a better angle. His hand massages gentle circles in your inner thigh, careful not to enter without ensuring you’re comfortable first.

“And when it snows,” Minho says. “We’ll be trapped inside. But we can occupy the little attic space, where the walls slant inwards. And I promise to make love to you until it stops snowing.”

“When does it stop snowing?” You ask, as Minho pumps his cock gently over you and positions himself in front of your entrance. He chuckles lightly as he leans in to kiss you, your entrance quickly swallowing his tip and caressing his girth with your arousal as he leans in to push himself even further.

“It doesn’t,” Minho replies finally, thrusting himself into you and letting his hands find the small of your back to steady himself. You let out a fervent moan at the sensation, quickly drunk on the feeling all over again. The mesmerizing sensation of his body hovering over you, of his cock inside of you, exactly the way you remembered it from the other night.

And it’s not right, but it feels so right to have him those close to you again, your best friend closing the gap of uncertainty between you and shutting you up with the confirmation that your souls have always belonged to each other this way.

“Fuck, Minho,” you breathe out, beads of sweat dripping down your temples as he buries himself to the hilt inside of you and holds it there, pulsating harshly against your cervix.

“Will you go faster?” You ask him, running your fingertips down his back in encouragement.

“Are you sure?” he says between labored breaths, still careful not to hurt you.

“Please,” you practically beg. “I’m so eager for you, please just do something about it, baby.”

Minho’s eyebrows raise a little at the utterance of a pet name. He’s never heard it from you- not in all your years of friendship. He’s hardly secured a nickname from you in all that time. And yet here you are now, taking him so fully obediently, throwing words like baby at him and begging him to fuck you so that you won’t have to think about Jung.

“Baby?” Minho says curiously, capturing your lips in a kiss.

“Baby,” you reply, rutting your hips up against his as he begins to move a little faster. “Baby, and honey, and fiancé.”

Minho chuckles a little at the last word, cocking his head as he digests your response.

“Fiancé?”

“Yeah,” you say back between little moans that escape your lips. “If we were in Shirakawa I think we’d be engaged. And you could fuck me whenever you wanted to.”

Minho feels his cock twitch at your words, his mind running rampant with the fantasy of being engaged to you. The implication of a lifetime of this, fucking you sweetly in the comfort of a shared home and coaxing all your stress out of you. And furthermore, a lifetime of you- of being dragged to all your favorite bars, takeout meals and cheap comedy movies, camping when the leaves turn orange and gutting salmon alongside you.

A lifetime of security, stability. One of sheer, unwavering happiness.

“What a dream that would be,” Minho voices, moving a little faster at your words now.

“You think?”

“I know,” he affirms, his hands finding the mounds of your breasts and cupping them gently to unclasp your bra.

“What a fucking dream it would be to have you like this every night.”

Your bra is promptly discarded alongside you on the couch, the cool air grazing your erect nipples as he brings his mouth down to latch around one in gentle sucking motions. You can feel yourself clench around his cock, taking in the sight of his drooly lips wrapped around your chest and working you in eager motions. It’s still the same Minho you recognize from years ago- still the dorky, yet handsome figure of permanence always present somewhere in your life. And it feels even less unnatural than the last time you slept with him, simply instilling another wave of eased stress and tranquility deep inside of you. It’s like this is supposed to be the relationship between the two of you now- you live your life catering to the stubborn, unmoving personality of Jung’s. Minho tends to his monotonous life away from you. And when you reunite once more, relishing in tales of your separate lives from each other and laughing over glasses of chenin blanc, he concludes the night with a slow, intimate session of love-making, one to seal the promise between your souls that regardless of where the future takes you, this is still permanent.

Neither the college girls Minho’s fucked so well, nor the shitty men you promise yourself to could come between that. And it’s a comfortable truth you both come to terms with as he gives himself to you so lovingly and wholly.

“Are you close?” Minho asks, moving to your lips once more and indulging you in a slow, sensual kiss.

“Yeah,” you breathe out, wrapping your arms around his neck a little stabler and bringing your gaze down to his cock, where he disappears inside of you with complete ease.

“Where do- fuck- where do you want me to finish?” Minho asks, squeezing his eyes shut momentarily. “I don’t want to pose any risks to you right now.”

And he’s right, both of you knowing very well that just because you’ve addressed your mutual attraction to each other, doesn’t mean you can run around with Minho’s arousal catching in your walls like you just aren’t engaged.

You still have a wedding to tend to, another person to return home to and a promise in the eventual holy sanctity of marriage that Jung is your only lover. But right now that no official certificate holds you to that, you can’t find it inside you to care, wanting nothing more than to be filled by Minho, and Minho and more Minho, and yet knowing it’s simply not a possibility.

“Wherever you want,” you finally breathe out, placing the option in the hands of Minho. Your breasts, your mouth. Inside of you. You don’t care- all you care is that he’s here, and he’s upholding his end of sealing the permanence between you two.

Minho gives a few particularly harsh thrusts, and then he brings a hand to the base of his cock, pulling out carefully and wincing as he staves off his orgasm. Your hands remain wrapped around the back of his neck, your gaze fixed on his as he works himself in quick strokes and leans in to kiss you.

“Can we go to Shirakawa?” You ask him again tenderly, as he continues to pump himself over your lying figure.

“Of course we can,” Minho responds with a sweet smile, his breaths labored as he nears his finish. “We can go wherever you want.”

“As long as you’re there,” you say to him, smiling up at him as he leans forward to kiss you again.

“As long as it’s the two of us,” Minho clarifies. “We can go anywhere.”

His eyes shut once more, his long eyelashes grazing his eyelids as his lips part open, and then he lets out a whimpered moan as he finally reaches his finish, coating your stomach in the milky white release of his orgasm. He kisses you when he finishes, smiling against your lips as he brings a hand down between you and rubs your clit in gentle, circular motions.

Your moans turn whimpered, too, as you reach your finish, clenching around what you wish was his cock and letting go for him.

And the credits on the television reach their end, transitioning to the hushed echo of a commercial playing. But neither of you are in any rush to leave or clean up just yet, allowing your listless bodies to intertwine lazily on the sofa as your giggles fill the quiet space between you and reverberate off the walls with such mutual fondness.

Mondays are heavy with work. Tuesdays, Jung works late. Wednesdays and Thursdays are dedicated time for his friends from college, and every day after that is a toss-up, but they’re often days you spend with Jung, watching movies in your apartment, going on little dates or in uncomfortable silence alongside him as he spills details of his work and his friends.

And he believes this to be your schedule, because he’s clueless otherwise.

Mondays are really for late-night phone calls with Minho, where you run off to the patio for a few minutes of privacy while Jung catches up on sports broadcasts. Tuesdays, Minho cooks you intricate meals at his apartment, alongside old comedy movies and concluded always by his gentle love-making to you. Wednesdays and Thursdays feel like college again, Minho finally agreeing to accompany you to all your favorite bars again and paying for your drinks as he watches you dance for him, his hands all over you as the two of you exchange needy kisses for everybody to watch.

And though the lights by the bar are far too dim for anybody to recognize you’re out with somebody beside your fiancé, a part of you doesn’t care.

Bastard. Facilitator of cheating. Homewrecker.

Sometimes you and Minho joke about the names they’d call him if they found out. Every derogatory term under the sun, like they haven’t already thought it of him for being quieter than Jung’s douchebag friends. And yet they also fail to see he’s more kind, more attentive and more loving than any of them could ever bring to the table in the presence of their own wives.

You also know they won’t find out- not when you’re virtually invisible to Jung and his friends when he’s not showing you off like some trophy to be won. When corporate holiday parties arise, or the need for an even number of golf participants makes itself known, Jung’s there without hesitation, grasping your hand between his clammy fingers and recounting days of when you’d met.

And yet none of his stories involve the present you. They fail to include your successes at work, or the books you’ve taken a liking to recently, or even the valiant efforts you’ve put into decorating your shared space with him, despite his complete lack of assistance. His stories of you exclude the liking you’ve taken to “yoga retreats” recently. And they definitely don’t know you can gut a fish like your life depends on it.

“This wine is better than the last one,” you say to Minho, as he pours himself a glass and slips a crystal stopper into the spout.

“It cost me less than the loaf of bread,” Minho replies with a breathy chuckle. “I don’t think we’ll ever stop favoring cheap convenience store wine.”

You swirl the cherry red color around in your glass, admiring the way the liquid forms a little whirlpool and settles once again, the strong scent wafting upward in the process.

“Notes of cherry, wood, french vanilla and… pocket money,” you say to Minho wafting the scent up even further with a wave of your hand.

He laughs at your words, taking a sip from his own glass and smacking his lips together once.

“Undertones of fruit and nuttiness. And maybe penny pinching, like in our college days,” Minho replies, the two of you chuckling as you set your glasses down.

You look out at the view from his balcony window, the darkened sky providing little to see at this hour, but still outlining the silhouettes of the trees and the bushels that line his apartment terrace.

“The time passed us by so fast,” Minho says in a somber tone, not turning to face you. You keep your gaze on the trees outside, thinking over your shared actions over the past few weeks. It’s been nothing short of thrilling going behind Jung’s back the way you do, but you’re also aware that with every meetup, you’re a day closer to tying the knot with Jung, preparing for a lifetime of permanence alongside the same person you’ve never felt so unsure about before now.

You turn to face him finally, a sad smile on your face as he waits for your answer.

“I wish we did something about this earlier,” you respond finally, taking note of the glow in his eyes as you speak. He looks marvelous at this proximity to you, so attainable and so enchanting all at the same time.

“Did something about what?”

“This,” you emphasize. “Us.”

Minho blinks nervously a few times, and then he cocks his head slightly as he waits for you to continue, too scared to affirm your words with thoughts of his own first.

“All this time I was trying to validate the fears inside of me surrounding this wedding,” you explain to him. “And then there was you, the same person who makes them nearly nonexistent. I wish we did something about it earlier so that maybe the fear was just lessened to begin with.”

Minho nods nervously, as he understands very well now that you’re on completely separate pages.

Minho, who wishes he could shake some sense into you and confess that this isn’t just some physical endeavor soul-searching the way it is for you- that he’s so madly in love with you, and that he chases the reminder of your permanence because the ivy that constricts his veins will surely kill him in your absence.

And thus, he takes what he can get- you, at your most vulnerable moments, unloved and uncherished by Jung, just seeking a kindly ear and maybe a warm body to remind you that there is some semblance of comfort to be felt in the interim.

And yet you, who only partakes in this fleeting act of physical yearning because you’re scared of commitment to Jung, who maybe doesn’t fulfill you every way you wish he would all the time. So you go behind his back, and you chase the fulfillment yourself, and you act upon the fears and the anxieties that have always circled your mind in the presence of Minho.

Maybe he likes you, maybe he’s jealous, maybe he wants to fuck you.

Statements you’ve heard throughout the entirety of your friendship, ones you couldn’t help but ponder, too, as Minho would grow painfully quiet with Jung in the room. But ones you always brushed off, telling yourself that the two just don’t click. And yet the arousal present with the fear makes for some of the most pleasurable moments together in the privacy of Minho’s home, albeit for Minho, on time begged and borrowed from you. The affair with Minho is not indicative of permanence in any form, and yet it exists to confront your very fear of permanence.

Selfish? Surely. Contradictory? In every sense of the word. The concerns raised to you by Minho himself in any way? Never.

So it remains, this tragic cycle of sleeping with your best friend behind your fiancé’s back, blind to the fact that he’s irrevocably in love with you, in a comfortable state of mind knowing that at least you’ll have felt this state of peace for even just a finite amount of time before you give yourself away to the marriage completely.

And yet it’s a beautiful thing in essence, this shared love between the two of you. A trust instilled so deeply on both sides to give yourselves away to each other every night and close a chapter of what once was, regardless of the differences in how it’s perceived.

The incandescent glow Minho’s tender embraces bring forth in you, no matter the fact that he’s simply grieving a very real, living love that still exists between the two of you. Green leaves of ivy that constrict his throat and force words back down them again, so that he may never admit that he’s jealous, and it’s you, it’s always been you. The same suffocating feeling he ponders late at night, asking himself why he’s been so magnificently cursed to only love you under these circumstances, and never in ones that promise him your permanence in return.

But when you're across from him, a glass of cheap wine in hand and your gentle laughter accompanying his, he can’t help but embrace the grand feeling- tarnished, but still grand.

“Maybe it worked out the way it was supposed to,” Minho settles on saying. “Maybe it wasn’t supposed to be more than this little period of time.”

And there’s a pang of pain in his chest as he utters the words, but he’s met with your small nod in response, visibly comforted by the prospect of his implications.

“Hey,” you say after a moment of silence, sitting up straight and swirling your glass of wine around in your hand again. “There’s a dinner thing Jung’s hosting with some people from the guest list. Don’t say you didn’t get the invite.”

Minho exhales with an audible groan, slouching back in his chair and running his hands through his hair.

“I don’t even like his cooking,” Minho admits frustratedly. “He’s just going to make me feel like an idiot the whole night.”

“But I want you there,” you say to him in a pleading tone. “You’re my best friend. I can’t do this stuff without you.”

“I know you can’t,” Minho replies. “And I don’t want you to have to. But it’s going to be awkward, and painful.”

“I won’t let him cross any boundaries,” you reason with him. “I’ll diffuse anything that comes up. I just want you there, even if it means you’re going to sit there and say nothing. Even that would make me happier than seeing your empty chair all night.”

Minho groans again, swirling his own glass of wine around in his hands and averting your gaze. He’s quiet for a long moment, and then he speaks again, in a reluctant voice.

“He would kill me if he found out, you know. We would never see each other again.”

You feel your heart sink at his words, even the thought of it beyond unnerving to you.

“Why do you say that suddenly?”

“Just… thinking,” Minho finishes.

“Well he has no way of knowing,” you console him. “And I promise to keep things civil.”

Minho thinks for a moment, wanting to press you for more answers about what this even is, about why you’re choosing to let him waste his time like this and what possessed him to agree to attend your pre-wedding dinner as the other man.

But he says nothing, letting a generous sip of alcohol serve as the answer to the requests you press him for- yes, of course he’ll be there, albeit with his long list of fears and reservations. But he’ll do anything, twice even, at your behest.

The ebony wood dining table looks particularly elegant when it’s set up for guests. You line the seats with ceramic white platters, shiny silverware and iridescent glasses, paying special attention to even minute details, such as the direction of the prongs for each fork you place on white nylon napkins. Mixed peonies and birchwood make up the long centerpiece, and tall white taper candles are lit in the bronze candleabras.

And the mood is largely set by the guests, who laugh loudly around the table with glasses of expensive beverages in their hands. They speak of their jobs, and their spouses and pop culture references you can’t be bothered to pay attention to. Your eyes scan the emptiness in their eyes, most of them living lives you can tell they’ve simply settled for. And you wonder, briefly, if they’ve ever experienced the unwavering happiness you do in the presence of Minho. Do they ever crack open a bottle of convenience store wine? Do they still let loose at clubs every now and then? Could they gut a fish if they caught one?

You respond to their stories with little nods and fake chuckles, and your head snaps in every direction past your guests to the front door.

Minho’s fashionably late tonight, or at least you hope he is, still holding on to the promise that he’s going to be here. And Minho’s many things- but he’s not dishonest. He’ll show if he says he will, albeit for a few minutes each time when it involves Jung. But he’ll still show, dropping by with a timid smile and greeting the audience before sending you off with a lousy excuse again and leaving his spot vacant for the remainder of the evening. But tonight is different- tonight he’s here as the other man. And you can’t decipher whether that indicates a change in his subsequent actions, that perhaps he won’t show after all, and you’ll be left to your own devices with Jung and his obnoxious friends.

“… And one of our clients is an intern this quarter,” Jung says loudly, as he rants about his work in typical fashion. “Which means I’m going to be carrying most of our partnership.”

The guests laugh and raise their glasses, and you can’t help but wonder how on earth the comment warrants even an ounce of laughter. As Kwang’s wife begins to voice a response, the doorbell rings once, and your head snaps in the direction of the echoing bell.

“I’ll get it,” you say quickly, rising from your seat and smoothing down your skirt. “Excuse me.”

The guests glance briefly in your direction, and then turn their attention back to Jung, who begins to voice another chronicle of his inadequate colleagues. As you march down the hallway, your heart quickens in your chest, admittedly a little nervous to confront Minho after the recent events. You wonder if he’s going to be more awkward, or maybe even shut down entirely around the group. Maybe he’s just here to drop off another cake and send you off with a wave. Endless possibilities you’ve never had to consider when you weren’t actively sleeping with him. You unlatch the front door, taking a deep breath, and then pull it open, your gaze falling instantly onto the standing figure.

And it’s a wave of comfort when he smiles at you, his eyes forming little crescents as he grins and exposes his endearing set of skewed teeth, a breathy chuckle escaping his lips as he does. He’s much more dressed up tonight, in a black collared button down and a black tie, his light brown tresses framing his chiseled jawline so well. And seeing him is more exciting than any other guest you’ve seen tonight, a present urge to pepper him in kisses and remain right here alone, with him.

“Hey,” Minho says in a shy voice.

“Hi,” you respond, trying to stifle the giddy expression on your face from the guests around you who might be looking. “I saved you a seat,” you continue. “Come on.”

Minho enters reluctantly, glancing around the room and giving a small nod to the guests as you direct him to the vacant seat beside you. And somehow, he looks a little more confident, his posture much straighter and a knowing smile on his face as he occupies the seat beside you.

“Hi,” he says to the guests as they meet his gaze, and he even gives a small nod to Jung, who shoots him a subtle scowl.

“Jung,” Minho voices, gesturing to the table. “Pleased to be here.”

Jung just nods at Minho, and then goes back to telling a story of his business accounts.

But your attention is everywhere except for Jung’s story, hardly even able to take your gaze off Minho’s. His eyes sparkle under the hanging pendant lamp, his lips pulling into a little smirk as you watch him with such fascination. There’s something so enticing about the prospect that nobody here knows he’s fucked you, several times since the last time they saw him, and he’ll likely do it tonight when Jung thinks you’re out with a group of girlfriends. They don’t know the world you two have effectively built together, romantic nights of cooking intricate dinners together over glasses of cheap wine. And they don’t know the history you two share, years of walking through your fears and uncertainty alongside one another and bettering yourselves in the process. He’s your other half in so many ways, and you’re not sure it’s something anybody except the two of you could even begin to comprehend.

You watch as Minho picks up a bottle of wine from the table, rotating it in his grasp and examining the contents. It’s one of Jung’s favorites, an expensive bottle of zinfandel he picks up from a special market a few hours out of the city. And it all tastes the same to you anyway, pairing just fine with steak or fish or even fast food at 3am. In fact, it’s subpar in comparison to Minho’s favorites, which taste like safe intimacy, laughing at comedy reruns and love-making under the warmth of his blankets.

“Anyways,” Jung voices loudly, finally garnering your attention from beside him. “We’ve never been more ready for this honeymoon. I need tropical weather and some margaritas.”

“Amen to that,” Kwang chimes in, raising his glass for the nth time tonight.

I hate warm weather, you want to say. I wish it was Shirakawa, under the safety of the prayer hands thatched roofs and blankets of snow.

“If we don’t come back, just know we opted to stay,” Jung then says. “I’ll stay golfing on the beach and you guys can tough out the rest of winter here.”

Cue the obnoxious laughter, fake smiles, raised glasses.

“You’ll have the whole trip to help on her form,” Kwang says loudly, gesturing over to you with the wine bottle in hand.

“We went golfing the other day, and let’s just say there’s ample time for improvement.”

Roaring laughter, unsightly grins and clinking glasses.

And Minho glances over at you, who keeps a smile on your face at the stupid remark.

It’s exactly this that keeps him from acting upon the urge- you look content. You don’t argue, you don’t maintain a blank expression. Instead you smile, and you agree with his friends and your eyes look like they’re still on the same page of devoting entirely yourself to this less-than-desirable relationship you flaunt. Minho knows he’s just a stepping stone in this chapter, and that he’s going to come out of this hurt. But he also knows that despite your fears, you’re content, and he’s not going to insert himself between the love that you deserve, though it may take a while to materialize fully.

You glance over at Minho with a nervous smile, silently hoping he’ll say something. Just ask me to run away with you, you want to say. Tell me to run, and I’ll meet you there. Wherever.

But you know he won’t dare, too set on the idea that this is still what you want. So he’ll remain like this, in the unfamiliar atmosphere of a dining table you share with another man, and he’ll let himself face what becomes of it in due time.

“Are you okay?” Minho asks quietly, leaning in to fill your glass with more expensive wine.

“Peachy,” you say with a smile. And one he returns, shooting you another gentle smile and nodding at your confirmation.

The two of you listen as Jung segues into another story about his business client, and Minho’s leather heel finds your ankle under the table, grazing it softly as you stifle a smile.

There’s no sexual implication rooted in his actions, maybe not not even romantic implication, as his heel moves up and down the back of your bare calf. It’s just a reminder to say this will always be of permanence.

Minho’s hands work up and down the sides of your waist as he kisses you, smiling against your lips as you slot yourself between his legs and grasp the back of his neck.

He kisses Jung’s expensive wine back into your mouth, the flavor complementing the mouthwatering look he sports this evening, and you have to remind yourself several times to slow down.

“This looks so good on you,” you say with a smile, fidgeting with his tie and loosening it from around his neck.

“It’s the same one I always wear,” Minho says with a chuckle. “I can’t be bothered to buy a new one.”

“Don’t buy a new one. I want this one. I want it to be this one every time.”

Minho laughs lightly, a form of verbal agreement, and then he pulls you a little closer to him, rubbing little circles in the small of your back as you stay close in his embrace. He’s sprawled out on his couch, strands of hair hanging delicately in his face as he steadies you in his hold over him, his pink lips visibly swollen from having kissed you for the better part of an hour now.

“Tell me something about Shirakawa,” you ask him innocently, unfastening the first few buttons of his collared dress shirt.

”Anything?” Minho responds, bringing an arm up to rest casually behind his head.

“Anything. Something dreamy.”

“Hm,” Minho hums in response. “There are rice fields, and lily ponds and green orchards,” he says finally. “We can walk through all of them without a care in the world, and we can get drunk off little glasses of sake.”

“And the whole town can be ours,” you chime in, leaning forward to press a chaste kiss to his toned chest.

“The whole town,” Minho echoes. “It can be whatever we want it to be.”

“As long as you’re there,” you tell him, trailing your kisses lower and undoing the line of buttons as you near his navel

“Anything you want,” Minho exhales in a dreamy tone. “Say it and it’s yours.”

His eyes shut instinctively as the last of his buttons are undone, exposing his chest to you and promptly covered in eager kisses as you trail down to his hardening cock in his pants.

And his arms rest lazily behind his head, feeling completely taken care of, so needy always for your delicate touch. Your nimble fingers work to graze in slow back and forth motions over his flesh, and then you hoist yourself up a little higher to straddle your hips over his crotch.

“Thank you for showing up tonight,” you say to him in a sweet voice. “It means everything to me.”

“Anything you want,” Minho says for the second time tonight. “Say the word and I’m there.”

“You’re my best friend,” you voice to Minho. “I couldn’t do any of this without you.”

And the utterance of a friend doesn’t even sting for him anymore. It’s fact- you belong to each other, time and time again, as friends, and lovers in the evening, and everything else in between. He doesn’t fight it, because he’s grateful for any role he can play amidst the grand role you play in his.

“Are you hard?” You ask a little quietly, a knowing smile on your face as you rock your hips gently over his.

“A little,” Minho replies, though he’s in no rush to have you take care of it. It’s enough exactly like this, your bodies intertwined together and infatuated with each other in the secrecy of his home.

“You want me to take care of you?” You then ask, one hand trailing up to wrap lightly around his throat.

And as your slender fingers graze the column of his neck, it’s clear to you at this angle. Sticking out like a sore thumb, so glaringly wrong and indecent from this proximity.

Your left ring finger, completely bare, your engagement ring nowhere to be seen.

At first you’re sure you’re hallucinating, pulling your hand back quickly to examine the thin tan where your finger meets your knuckle, one that’s usually covered by the gleaming jewelry. But as you rotate your finger around under the dim lighting, you confirm it’s not in fact some illusion- your engagement ring is gone.

Minho sits up a little, craning his neck a little to examine your worried expression.

“Y/n?” He questions, taking note of the way your eyes remain fixed to your hand. “Is everything okay?”

“It’s not here,” you say simply.

“What? What’s not here?”

“My ring,” you say a little more panicked, climbing off him and glancing around the coffee table.

“Where’s my ring?” You question, moving aside stacks of books and magazines atop the glass table. Minho sits up, glancing around too, searching desperately for the little piece of silver jewelry.

“Let’s stay calm,” Minho says as he stands up. “It has to be around here. When was the last time you saw it?”

“I can’t remember,” you say in a panicked tone, now scrambling to the kitchen and searching the marble counters.

“Okay,” Minho says calmly. “Was it- do you ever take it off to wash it?”

“I never take it off,” you reply. “I never take it off, why the fuck isn’t it on my finger?”

“Let’s stay calm,” Minho repeats. “It has to be in here-”

“Calm?” You finally retort, turning to face him with tears pricking your eyes. “You want me to stay calm? Jung’s going to kill me, do you know how fucking expensive that thing was?”

“Of course,” Minho says, buttoning up his shirt as he continues to search. “Which is why we’re going to find it.”

And you don’t reply for several moments, still frantically scanning the kitchen counters for any sign of your ring. But it’s a moot point, every napkin you unball containing nothing, nothing in the trash cans Minho searches through, even the dishwasher thoroughly searched, to no avail.

And you can’t help but to cry, tears falling nonstop from the corners of your eyes as you rush about the kitchen and think of every worst-case scenario. This is it. Confronting Jung about it means he’s going to know what’s been going on, chew you out about the cost of the ring and your carelessness toward it. And then call off the wedding, and every single one of your friends will know you’re a cheater and a liar.

“It’s not fucking here,” you cry out to Minho, halting your movements to bury your face in the palms of your hands, letting yourself emit muffled sobs into the sleeves of your sweater.

“It has to be,” Minho says, glancing once more around the room, and then approaching you to pull you in for a hug.

“Don’t,” you order, pushing him away from you, and Minho furrows his brows together. “Just don’t fucking touch me right now.”

Minho gives a breathy chuckle, thinking at first you might be joking, and then his expression softens as he realizes you’re being completely serious.

“What- seriously? That’s it?” Minho questions.

“What?” You say with a choked sob. “I can’t find my fucking engagement ring. The one I was given to get married, in case you forgot. Sorry I’m not in the mood.”

Minho scoffs lightly, placing his hands on his hips and shaking his head. And then he meets your gaze once more, a solemn expression on his face.

“What are we doing?”

“What?” You query in response.

“What the fuck are we doing?” Minho repeats. “What the fuck are you doing here if you’re getting married?”

You shrug frustratedly, wiping tears with the back of your hand and saying nothing in response.

“No, answer me,” Minho commands, his voice raising a little. “What are we doing, going behind his back like this? You come here almost every night spewing your bullshit about Shirakawa and suddenly it’s my fault that you can’t find your fucking engagement ring? I mean, who even cares?”

“Who cares?” You retort. “I do. I’m getting married-”

“Exactly,” he interrupts. “So then what the fuck are we doing? Go get married, for fuck’s sake. Will you just leave, for good then?”

“You want me to walk out of your life just because I’m getting married?”

“I want you to leave because I’m in love with you,” Minho says finally, and a deafening silence washes over you two.

For a moment, all that’s heard are your echoing sniffles and Minho’s heavy breathing, as he struggles to find the words to continue.

“You really don’t see it in the way I look at you? You really haven’t realized I’m only okay being the other man because I’ll take any fucking version of you I can get at this point?”

Your gaze fixes on his, taking note of the way tears prick at the corners of his eyes, too.

“I’ve been in love with you for all these years,” Minho says, his voice coming out in a choked sob. “And what a waste, all these talks of Shirakawa when I’ve known all along it was always going to be him in the end.”

His words circle your mind with a sense of urgency, as you struggle to respond.

You have known it, maybe even reciprocating by this point, but knowing that you can’t, not when you’re getting married in mere weeks. You’re happy, and you’re safe here with Minho. But in terms of love, this isn’t permanent. It’s a fleeting thing, one that has to end like this as you approach the next chapter of the rest of your life.

And yet it hurts, like a knife pierced deep into an existing wound, like thick vines of ivy that caress your veins and pull tightly with every thought of it being Minho all this time, all these years.

“I love you,” Minho says almost sheepishly, throwing his hands at his sides in defeat. “I’ve always loved you. I love you in loud bars and over cheap bottles of wine. And I’m jealous- god, I’m jealous,” Minho admits in a choked sob. “And it’s killing me. I can’t do anything about it except watch you plan a life with somebody I’ll spend the rest of my life wishing was me instead.”

Your lips part to say something, but you can’t, simply wiping the tears that fall onto the sleeve of your sweater.

“I love you in the hands of another man and I’ll still love you if you choose him. But I can’t do it at this proximity to you anymore.”

“Minho, please-”

“There’s nothing else,” Minho says, gasping back his tears. “This is it for us.”

You watch as he exhales deeply, wiping his tears and gesturing back to the kitchen.

“Did you check the soap dish?” Minho then says in a quiet voice.

“What?”

“The soap dish,” he clarifies somberly. “For your ring.”

And Minho watches as your gaze falls to the stainless steel soap dish across the room, a bristle pad sponge occupying the rectangular dish, alongside the familiar glint of your silver engagement ring.

One you removed to ensure you didn’t lose it among the plate of pin bones from the cod you helped Minho prepare. And one you hadn’t even realized has been missing from your finger for several hours now.

Your gaze falls back to Minho’s before you retrieve the ring, and his eyes are swollen and mournful. There’s not a glint of hope present between you two- not in friendship, and certainly not in love.

And neither of you say another word as you pivot on your heel to collect the symbol of yours and Jung’s ode to permanence.

The polyester-spandex mix of your reception dress is much itchier than you remembered it to be. It’s a simple white piece, long and cascading behind the heels you’ve chosen, a generous v-cut enhancing the curve of your breasts as you adjust the hem in the mirror.

“Is it more comfortable than your wedding dress?” One of the bridesmaids questions with a smile.

You shoot her a somber smile, nodding at her and fidgeting with the long sleeve of your dress.

“Yeah. It is.”

“It should be,” she responds kindly. “Remember, try not to step on the bottom or we’ll have to get it cleaned off before the real thing.”

You nod at her, checking your reflection once more in the full-length mirror across from you. You love the woman you embody- she looks elegant, and sure of herself and well on the path to a lifetime of stability and happiness.

And yet the girl inside of you can’t feel further from the perception.

You want nothing more than to climb out of the tight-fitting dress and leave all of this, damn this rehearsal dinner to hell and call off the wedding. But this is it- the final stretch. Guests at every corner assume their positions and practice where they’ll stand and how they’ll move about so elegantly as you say your vows.

Jung seems so sure of himself, adjusting the cuffs of his suit and shooting you a wink from across the room as you stare blankly. And you can’t reciprocate, still far too preoccupied with the events of last week to care about any of this. Minho sending you off, the ultimatum to choose between your fiancé and the best friend you’re in love with.

Of course you couldn’t choose Minho, whose role in most of this has been to help lessen your fears and prepare you for a lifetime of giving yourself to Jung. And yet somewhere along the way, you couldn’t help but wonder if that was even true, completely smitten with every part of him, too. The fact remains that you’re in love with him, and yet you’ve both been so magnificently cursed to keep it at a comfortable distance and pray that in some version of this story, it’s you guys in the end.

Your family saunters about the venue in their fancy dressed and suits, and your guests chat amongst themselves and sample the foods that have been laid out for them. And your mind circles with images of Minho, and Minho and more Minho. And what he would look like, instead of Jung, waiting at the end of the aisle for you with a toothy grin and tears in his eyes. The cheap wine you’d choose to cater, just a handful of guests the way you know he’d want it. And an innocent, undemanding love shared between the two of you, sealing your promise to each other with a tender kiss and his breathy laugh.

Yet the fantasy is fleeting, it’s rooted in the delusion of a cheater, in every sense of the word, and it would effectively ruin your life had it come to fruition.

“Which way do we go from here?” Jung questions loudly, and your head snaps up in his direction.

“From here you’ll go to the right, just past the foyer there,” a coordinator responds. “Make sure to smile when you’re walking down an aisle at any given point.”

Stupid. The whole thing feels stupid.

“Did you get that?” Jung questions, and you nod meekly.

“Sure.”

“Let’s take five,” a coordinator says, clasping her hands together.

Jung resumes a conversation with the groomsmen beside him, and your eyes fall to the vacant seat across the table, where Minho’s meant to be sitting. A small white folded card rests delicately on a white platter, his name scribbled in loopy cursive to reserve his spot.

Lee Minho.

And you read his name over a dozen times, replaying every last word of your conversation in your head and wondering what he’d do if he were here. Probably criticize the wine, or make faces at Jung’s phony speeches. And love you from afar, but with his entire heart, regardless.

“What do you think so far?” Jung leans in to whisper.

“Yeah,” you reply, nearly evading the question altogether.

Your eyes scan the room at the carefully placed decorations- rows of lantern lights, white tablecloths and organized dishes for the guests, tapered candles are lit at every table. And in the center, bushels of magenta flower arrangements in cylindrical glass vases.

Magenta.

Your eyes do a double take, carefully examining the color as you furrow your brows. Magenta. Neon, obnoxious shades of magenta at every table. Nothing within the realm of the baby pink you requested. Harsh on the eyes and contrasting repulsively against the rest of the decor.

“The flowers are magenta,” you say to Jung quietly.

“Hm?”

“The flowers,” you repeat. “Are magenta.”

“Yeah,” Jung says, audibly a little confused. “They’re nice, right?”

“I said pink,” you respond. “Baby pink. These aren’t pink.”

Jung furrows his brows together, and then he cocks his head at the floral displays set upon each table.

“You’re right,” he then replies. He snaps his fingers at a staff member, and then he gestures to the floral displays.

“These aren’t pink,” he says harshly. “She requested pink and not magenta. Could we get these swapped out, please?”

A coordinator jots something down in a small notepad, and then gives him an understanding nod.

“That’s what we’re paying you guys for, right?” Jung asks sarcastically. “Come on, don’t let us settle for magenta flowers.”

And when he turns back to you, his chuckles get quieter as he observes the displeased expression on your face.

“Why are you making such a big deal out of this?” You ask him quietly.

“What?”

“Why are you ordering them around like that? They’re just flowers.”

“What? But you just said-”

“You never make things feel like less of a big deal,” you say quietly, a little scoff escaping your lips as you speak.

“What are you talking about?”

“You just take something and run with it. You don’t make things feel like less of a problem than they are. You’re supposed to comfort me, or find the good in magenta flowers. Not yell at the service workers.”

Jung laughs nervously, taking your words for a joke at first, and other guests begin to stare across the table as they watch you rise from your seat.

“And why is the wine so fucking expensive?”

“Please, sit down,” Jung says nervously, waving the guests off as they shoot him concerned looks.

“No, I don’t want to.”

And as you search for the words to say, your heart beating erratically, you realize it’s exactly this that you’ve stopped yourself from doing all this time. Fighting back. Using your voice the way Jung so comfortably weaponizes his against you. Letting your emotions spill out from the years they’ve been bottled up inside of you, and finally coming to terms with the fact that this isn’t the life you want at all.

It’s Minho you love, it’s always been Minho and it’s always going to be Minho.

“I don’t want this,” you say to Jung, as you smooth down your dress and stand up.

“Please, sit,” he says through gritted teeth.

“You don’t know the first thing about me,” you say in a shaky voice. “You don’t fulfill me, you haven’t touched me in weeks, I don’t think you even know that I asked for baby pink flowers, because you’re too busy showing off to all the shitty people you call friends. I don’t think we have ever been friends.”

All of the guests keep their gazes on you, taken aback by your words, but you don’t care, continuing your rant while they watch in horror.

“I hate expensive wine,” you say to Jung. “I want to go on a honeymoon somewhere it snows. I want to watch comedy movies, and go camping and be so madly in love it hardly feels like it some days, because we’re also such good friends when we’re not completely infatuated with each other.”

Jung doesn’t say anything, glancing nervously around the table as the coordinators maintain their silence, too. Your chest rises and falls with gasped breaths as you try to hold back from crying in front of them. And then you shrug, before finishing your speech.

“At the end of the day, there’s the man who tells me how to golf,” you say in a shaky voice. “And there’s the man who guts a fish alongside me, mess and all.”

Jung frowns at your words, visible confusion painting his features.

“What?”

“I have to go,” you say to him, sparing him any sort of explanation.

The hem of your dress is balled into the palms of your hands and pulled up to give yourself room to walk, as you kick off your heels and begin to exit the venue. And before you do leave, you pivot around one last time, letting your gaze meet Jung’s visibly irate expression.

“Here,” you announce, pulling the silver band off your ring finger and setting it down on the tablecloth.

“If you’re going to make a big deal out of anything, at least let it be this.”

The polyester-spandex mix of your reception dress isn’t made to run in. It’s much too long, the fabric bunches up at the sides and its bright white color begs to be kept indoors only. And yet you run- and you don’t stop, not even for a second, until the reception building is completely out of your sight, disappearing beyond the trees and the tall grasses that surround it.

Your bare feet scrape the squelching mud that surrounds the grassland after the recent rains, and overhead, the piercing blue sky and a harsh sun beams down over you in encouragement. And you normally hate blue skies and green grasses like this, always equating them to Jung’s stupid golf courses and the corporate events he’s dragged you to for years.

But today it serves as a sort of blessing, like the world is brighter, lighting your path and guiding you to the beacon that is Minho, and all his unconditional, unwavering love for you. Maybe it took you years to finally acquaint yourself with your emotions like this, and maybe you hadn’t even realized what true love was until Minho. And there’s the possibility, of course, that you’re also too late, and that Minho has already settled on the tragic fact that Jung would always remain a part of you.

And that’s true- he will maintain a role of permanence in your life. He was your first serious boyfriend throughout college, your first fiancé and your first true love before you understood it in a less superficial form. And yet he will also permanently remain the man whose life you walked out on, because he helped you realize he’s nothing near what actually fulfills you.

Once the paved roads are in view again, you waste no time waving down a taxi and uttering Minho’s address to the driver with such urgency. Your dress is caked in mud up to the ankles, and your hair is in complete disarray as you glance out the window at the rows of cars, all belonging to guests here for your dinner rehearsal. And you chuckle briefly, at the thought of them emptying the lot and walking out of your life forever.

Contrastly, Minho’s apartment is in complete disarray, too, as he hoists the last of his immediate belongings into a leather bound suitcase and latches it shut.

What a waste, he thinks to himself. What a waste to have spent so much time comfortably in love with the idea of a finite soulmate, and at such close proximity, too. You’re probably off at your rehearsal dinner, sampling finger foods and laughing at all of Jung’s surface-level conversation.

And he’ll never know you the way Minho knows you. He will never comprehend your fears, your reservations, all your little quirks and the things that make you tick. He’ll never fully understand the prospect of being so bound to somebody in both friendship and love that it’s almost indistinguishable what you are to each other. Perhaps that’s where you went wrong, too- because Minho knows it, that his role in your life has always been to love you, near, far and at every point in between. And yet you deem it just a fleeting thing, one implying an end.

There is no discernible point between the end of my friendship and my love for you, Minho wishes he could tell you. Just like the promise of my friendship to you, it’s a blossoming thing, this beautiful phenomenon. And we can run with it, or we can let it die like this- but it will always remain of permanence.

The chestnut suitcase is hoisted into the trunk of his car, also littered with boxes and duffel bags of his belongings. It’s a vulnerable feeling, to pack up and move on like this. Not forever- just for the duration of which you’ll be uttering your vows to Jung. He can’t bear to be in the same city as any of it, he refuses to let himself love at the proximity of you dolled up in a wedding dress, in the sacred environment of a church surrounded by your family. How could a higher power accept the felicitations of the same man who’s been fucking you behind the groom’s back? Within the four walls of which transforms hate to love, and sin to virtue?

What a waste, Minho concludes again. What a waste to have loved this deeply, and to pacify your fears only for another man to reap the benefits. Try as Jung might, he’ll never know you the way Minho does. And the vast trench that separates you from Jung, one which paints a clear divide of friendship and his superficial love for you- that will remain permanent, too.

As Minho starts up the engine, the last of his belongings all packed and ready to go, he glances around the neighborhood with a somber expression. The sun glares down on the empty concrete roads, birds circling the sky like there’s any reason to celebrate. Maybe they’re ravens, and maybe they circle in a mourning ritual. The only event fitting for an afternoon like this one, as Minho prepares to leave for his parents’ house- like the coward he knows he is.

His apartment grows smaller with every passing inch he drives down the concrete road, and a trembling hand reaches up to adjust his rear view mirror, letting out a deep exhale as he prepares to leave all this behind.

And as the faint outline of his apartment grows smaller, a white figure behind him grows bigger.

It starts as a fleeting blur, maybe a shadow, or perhaps the glint of the sunlight in his mirror. But as he quickens the push of his foot to the gas pedal, it grows faster, too, catching up to the drag of his car along the concrete and approaching him with such purpose.

An apparition of sorts, he thinks momentarily.

I’m fucking seeing things. I’ve officially lost it.

But as the frantic call of his name floats through the air and into the crack of his car window, his eyes widen, the lag of his brain finally reaching a halt as he slams on his brakes and throws open the door.

And in rushed motions, he’s climbing out to face you, doubled over as you catch your breath and hold a hand up in surrender.

“Stop!” You shout, waving your hands and motioning for him to cease his movements.

And Minho’s eyes don’t get any smaller, maintaining their shocked expression as he waits for you to speak.

Your white dress, tainted brown up to your knees in mud and grass. Even your face is muddy, streaks of it painting the otherwise stunning face of makeup you flaunt. And you speak in pleading gasps as you finally break the silence between the two of you.

“It’s you,” you say to Minho sheepishly.

“What are you-”

“It’s you, it’s always been you,” you breathe out. “I was so stupid, and I left as soon as I could comfortably come to terms with it. It’s you I love, Minho. Not Jung and not the idealized version of that life I created in my head. I can’t do any of this without you, and I can’t live the rest of my life without having said something. I love you- now, and in ten years time and I want to spend the rest of my life gutting fish alongside you- mess and all.”

Minho doesn’t say anything for a moment- in fact, he wears a poker face as he watches you continue to catch your breath. And then he scoffs lightly as he shakes his head.

“You waited until the day of your wedding to say something?” Minho retorts frustratedly.

“Rehearsal dinner,” you correct him. “This is just a dinner dress.

“Regardless,” Minho says. “I mean, what are we doing? There’s another man waiting for you, and we’re here doing something we should’ve done years ago if it was meant to be in the slightest.”

You feel your heart drop at his words, confirming the theory you’d feared the most. Too late.

“Please,” you beg, and Minho shakes his head.

“We’re terrible people,” he then states, his voice trembling in the process. “Cheaters, and liars. And this is far too rooted in dishonesty and selfishness to be love.”

Tears prick the corners of your eyes as you watch Minho scan your expression. And perhaps he’s right- but it can’t be anything except for love, not when it feels this right with him.

“Where are you going?” You ask Minho quietly, moving a strand of muddied hair out from your eyes.

“My parents’ place,” he replies.

And you give him a small nod, pivoting on your heel to walk out of his life, forever.

Except it’s the realization of this that causes you to turn back around-

There is no forever in the absence of Minho- not when he plays a role of permanence.

He will forever be the man you fell in love with, the man you’ve been in love with for years, one you risked your life to come find and one who’s defined the limitations of what it means to be a best friend and simultaneously a lover.

That will remain with you always, and near, far and everywhere in between, the love will exist the way it always has.

“Loving me was the most selfish thing you ever did,” you call out to Minho, and he turns back around to meet your gaze.

“And yet you did it anyway,” you continue. “You made love to me and you drank my fiancé’s wine and we’re in love so selfishly at this proximity to each other. But it doesn’t change the fact that we’re in love, and that I’m not going back to Jung. And leaving here- depriving yourself of the love you’ve wanted for so long, that’s also a selfish move. You can go as far as you want, but it doesn’t change the fact that the love is still here between us.”

Minho’s lips part to say something, but he doesn’t, instead blinking nervously as he waits for you to finish.

“And at the end of the day, there’s the man who tells me how to golf, and there’s the man who teaches me how to gut a fish, mess and all,” you finally finish.

Minho stays silent, pondering your words, and scanning your expression.

And truth be told, he wants to take you in his arms and run, hearing the words he’s longed to hear all his life. But he stops himself, instead emitting a breathy chuckle from his lips and shaking his head.

“Well what do you propose?” He finally asks, cocking his head as he awaits your reply.

And his response is a weight off your shoulders, as you sigh deeply and shrug in his direction.

“I propose we let ourselves be selfish,” you say to him. “And we spend the rest of our lives seeking forgiveness together.”

Minho chuckles, taking careful note of the way your eyes sparkle as you approach him. He’s not sure he’s ever seen you so relaxed before, and certainly not so sure of yourself. You look like the woman he’s loved both near and far, exuding confidence and passion and unwavering comfort in your demeanor. His best friend and his lover, he thinks encouragingly, as he cups his hands around your cheeks and pulls you in for a tender kiss, one that confirms your proposal and implies all of this permanence.

The roads are still empty in the dull afternoon of the hour, Minho maneuvering the car with one hand as you sit beside him in the passenger seat, your hands intertwined over the center console as the harsh blue sky and bright hues of green grass melt into blurs of color beside you. And he speaks only of Shirakawa as he drives, promising you beautiful snowfalls and chilly walks along the lily ponds upon your arrival.

You can picture everything as the tales escape his lips, full of life as you imagine the brown farmhouses and green hills, where you and Minho promise to love selfishly under the prayer hand thatched roofs, the very place your forgiveness will coincide alongside the permanence.

And as he brings the back of your hand to his lips for a chaste kiss, he can feel the green vines of ivy loosen around his soul, but this time you feel it too, viridian leaves finally putting distance between your venules and their harsh grasp. And perhaps it wasn’t grieving all along, but love for you- love which you’re full of, too.

The vines tangle themselves beautifully between your seated figures, blossoming flowers and color and placing life back into you both.

And for the first time in a long, long time, Minho can finally breathe.

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